Appassionata
by Undetectable Person
Summary: UPDATED Skittery's bitter outlook on life is challenged by a mysterious stranger. Yet she has some lessons to teach him, and one may be the hardest he has ever learned.
1. Prologue

About my other fics...please, please, please...don't ask. O:-) I want to work on them. I hope to work on them. Just...don't ask.

Insane for the infamous slacker to start yet another? Oh yes.

Started scribbling this in a notebook when I got bored in study hall one day. And whadda ya know? It evolved into an inspiration.

WARNING: Contains some heavy-type stuff that may make some people uncomfortable. Nothing graphic, but plenty of...references. Please take heed, 'cause I love you all and truly have no desire to offend or disturb anyone. ^_^

Author's Note: This story is, at the moment, rather important to me. I say this because it might mean that updates may take...well, a long time even for me, and that's saying something. Please just remember that it's only because I really want this story to the best it can be, and that means endless proofreading, editing, revising...well, perfectionism. So bear with me, loves? O:-) Thankee very much.

Dedication: For eleven beloved Newsies sisters: Eire, Poker, Cocky, Let, Runaway, Tree, Tag, Spy, Puck, Trolley, and Mousetrap. For Zippy and Ghost, two more dear NML friends: I finally wrote you a Skittery story. :-) For my darling Liz/Fish/Seagull, who started it all. For my English teacher, Mrs. Foster, for providing me with wonderful descriptive language for the smell of makeup. And for my best friend, Jess/Cricket/Symphony, with love.

One Last A/N: This is just the prologue. It's, uh...*smiles sheepishly* Really long for a prologue. ^_^ Also, there are no newsies in it at all. Please don't be discouraged. Chapter One will start two years after the prologue, and I promise it will start off right away with newsies.

Appassionata

By Flare Higgins

**Prologue******

"Butterfly?"

The thin voice echoed faintly off the hulking factory buildings that sheltered the dim alley. There was no response.

"Butterfly!"

The cry was higher this time, harsher, choked with the impending threat of tears. Again, the brick fortress surrounding the frightened child threw back her desperate call in empty, resonating tones: "fly-y-y..."

Gradually, the echoes faded, and then the night was still; still as a New York City night had never been before, like the eerie silence that follows a violent storm.

Presently, the girl emerged from her gloomy refuge. Sparkling, salty trails stained her hollow moon-white cheeks.Eyes of murky brown blinked rapidly as if against a sudden flood of sunlight, though they were met only by a shroud of darkness, and the usual clouds of yellow-grey smog from the nearby factories.

Leah Bailey was fourteen years old, but she didn't look it. She stood several inches below five feet, her body rail-thin, her face holding the pinched, emaciated look of starvation. Ebony hair, as fine and silky as a baby's, framed her face, but was cut so short it didn't reach her chin. A filthy grey dress, little more than a rag, hung loose and formless on her skeletal frame. From her thin salmon lips, parched and badly scabbed, three hopeless syllables were very softly rasped into the unsettling silence.

"Butterfly."

The street Leah walked was deserted. It was like a sacred burial ground, traversed only by a solitary specter, who had risen restlessly from her crypt in vain pursuit of the light and warmth belonging to the world of the living.

If these were the qualities Leah sought, however, she was to be disappointed; for when another figure did at last appear, in the doorway of a dilapidated building, it was only another ghost like herself. As Leah stopped to observe her fellow shade, the contrast between them was stark; while Leah was a tiny, dark shadow, this one was large and robust, bright and colorful, a veritable rainbow of a phantom. It leaned down close to the small girl, placing crimson-nailed hands on her shoulders, and the heavy, waxy aroma that filled Leah's nostrils caused hot acid bile to rise in her stomach.

"Lost, honey?" the gaudy spirit inquired, in a tone as sickly-sweet as the scent of her lavish makeup.

"No..." The waif recoiled. "I'm lookin' for..."

"A place to stay?" oozed the honey-coated voice. "A _job,_ perhaps?"

"...my sister," Leah whispered.

The woman laughed, a rich and raucous sound that crudely shattered the almost holy silence of the night.

"You got plenty'a sisters in there, honey," she cooed, motioning in through the doorway filled by her formidable body. "Just c'mon in and you can meet 'em all."

She pulled forcefully on the young girl's arm, backing into the ominous structure from which she had emerged. Leah resisted.

"I have to find--"

"You ain't gonna find nothin' tonight, honey," her captor protested, with the same sugar coating on her words, though they also contained a note of irritation, of urgency. "This ain't no night for littluns like yourself to be out an' about."

And before Leah could argue further, she was literally dragged through the door, which was clicked shut behind her by the heel of a sequined, rose-colored shoe.

The first thing Leah noticed about the room was that it was stifling; more so even than the smog-choked streets outside. The cigarette smoke was so dense that Leah immediately began to choke, bending over and covering her mouth and nose with both hands as harsh, rattling coughs shook her frail body. Her eyes stung fiercely; she could barely see a foot in front of her.Then the woman was there again, bending over her, straightening her up and fanning the smoke away from her with an ostentatious flower-laden hat, and dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief.

Leah smiled weakly but gratefully as her throat cleared; but when her vision cleared as well, she wished it hadn't.

She found that this place she had been drawn into was filled with women. Beautiful women. Women all clad in attire as gaudy and bright as that of her hostess. Women in tight scarlet dresses with low necks and skirts that were too short. Women whose faces resembled those of clowns, standing out as brilliant pallets of color even in the poor, flickering light of several cheap wax tapers placed strategically around the room. Women covered in beads, in feathers, in sequins and glitter, in glittering paste jewels. Women smoking cigars and cigarettes, guzzling alcohol from glass bottles, talking and laughing loudly, flipping their hair and their feather boas. Women with full lips and bosoms, and hollow, hateful, haunted eyes.

It was not even the room full of women that disturbed Leah the most. It was something nondescript and off to the side: a plain, rickety staircase leading upward, the top of which disappeared into a chasm of darkness.

"Madame!"

The word came from the mouth of one of the women, who stepped out of the shadowy, smoky realm like any wraith floating from the mists. Her garb was much simpler than that of most of the others; a low-cut, forest-green dress, and no more. Not a single glamorous adornment. Only a hint of powder and paint tinged her stunningly flawless face. Thick mahogany tresses cascaded down her back. Her eyes, a grey-blue as deep and as forbidding as the ocean, gazed fixedly down at Leah, who returned the gaze with horror. For she realized now that this was no woman at all...it was a girl, no older than herself.

"Madame," she repeated vehemently. Her voice contained a trace of an accent, Leah noted; but, despite the origin of the word it spoke, it was not French. While she puzzled over it, the girl rushed on. "What are you doing, bringing this girl in here? Look how little she is. Just a kid. What's she doing here?"

The woman who still stood beside Leah...Madame, as she seemed to be known...raised an eyebrow and laughed mockingly. "The girl's no younger than you, September. She needs a place to stay. Look how thin she is, how pinched; you know hunger when you see it, I'm sure. Are you objecting to my kindness?" She laughed again, and Leah suppressed a shudder.

The girl called September did not bother to; shudder she did, and in a quick gesture, she took Leah firmly by the hand. "Come with me, come with me...she never should've brought you in here...c'mon..."

Head whirling, Leah meekly allowed herself to be tugged across the room, through the smoke, through the powerful smells of sweat and alcohol that attempted to compete with the smoky odor pervading everything, past the gaudy ghosts and their clinking bracelets and drunken laughter...and past the staircase. There September clutched Leah's hand more tightly and sped up her pace. Nevertheless, Leah's ears caught the sound of heavy footsteps descending those stairs and a growling voice, a male voice...and then her guide had turned a corner, leading her swiftly down what she instantly understood to be a second staircase.

The cool, damp air and musty earthen smell were a great relief after the overwhelming atmosphere of the room upstairs. As they approached the bottom of the staircase and Leah filled her lungs, she frowned slightly. From the bottom of the stairs, she could hear voices floating up to them, and something else...music?

"Don't worry," September cautioned, glimpsing the apprehension in her charge's eyes. "It's only a small bar...some drinks, card games, and such. Not nearly as bad as upstairs. It's where I sleep," she added, "in a little storage room...you can have the bottom bunk. I work there during the day...serving drinks, cleaning glasses, you know. At night..." Even in the underground darkness, Leah could see September's cheeks flush under their dusting of rose-colored powder. "It doesn't make enough," she mumbled in explanation.

At that moment, the two girls reached the last step, and arrived at their destination. Looking around, Leah decided that it was, as her companion had promised, not that bad. Compared to upstairs, this crowd was practically as subdued as a graveyard. A scattering of young and middle-aged men sat around small, round tables, shuffling cards, shoving coins and wooden poker chips around, sipping mugs of beer, and discussing a variety of topics (mostly politics, from the sound of it) in low, gruff voices. In the far corner of the bar room was something which seemed extraordinarily out of place. There sat a dusty baby grand piano, being dutifully plucked away at by a scrawny little white-haired man. Most out of place was the music drifting from the corner to fill the room. Leah caught her breath.

_That music..._

It was fast, bright, energetic, lively and bursting to the seams with emotion. It was passion, as she had never heard expressed this way before. It was beautiful.

Behind a grubby counter slouched the bartender, a beer-bellied older man with tangled, greasy hair and a bad squint. He glanced up from a drink of his own, taking in September with no surprise, but eyeing Leah with mild suspicion.

"She's a guest of Madame's," September called quickly, her blush deepening.

The bartender grunted with satisfaction and returned to his previous engagement.

"This way."

September had to drag Leah away from the bar and its piano. She drew her through a small side door that Leah wouldn't even have noticed without assistance, closing it behind them and quickly fastening the latch.

Shivering a bit...she had just noticed how cold the cellar was...Leah glanced around. There wasn't much to see. The room was basically the size of a large closet. A small, crudely built wooden bunk bed was shoved against one wall. Squeezed in next to it was an equally small and rough-hewn dresser. Only a few personal items were scattered over the top of the dresser...a hairbrush, a hand mirror, a pad of paper, a few cans of paint with a brush, and a photograph of an attractive, dark-haired teenage boy.

"Who...?"

Before Leah could even get the word out, September had reached out and flipped the picture face-down. She turned with a tight, false smile, deliberately misinterpreting the question.

"Who am I? Just September's fine. I haven't used my birth name for a while now. And who are you?"

"Leah Bailey," Leah replied.

Nodding, September approached the bed and perched on the bottom bunk, patting the space beside her. Leah sat, and September turned to face her, taking the smaller girl's hands in hers. "Leah," she started gently. "You can stay here tonight; it's fine with me. And tomorrow, I promise I'll help you in any way I can. But most girls..." She faltered. "Most girls who come here..."

"I know," Leah replied quickly.

"You...are you..." September's cold blue eyes almost seemed to shimmer, but it could have been a trick of the light cast by the candle on the dresser. "What's your story, Leah?" she finally whispered.

Four words. Four words were all it took to cast Leah's mind back through the day...back five minutes, ten minutes, an hour, two, three...back to the alley, to the voices, to the footsteps, to the torches illuminating faces twisted with wrath, and her hand slipping, losing its grip on another's.

The feelings rose inside her, without warning, without preparation. Her body was wracked with pain, so suddenly and so thoroughly that the sensation was physical. The sobs were torn out of her as if by some wild animal, an ocean of tears bursting past some invisible dam to flood her face for the second time that day, as she doubled over and clutched her suddenly seasick stomach.

Her motions created a quick draft, fanning the nearby pinpoint of candlelight and causing it to dance wildly, throwing crazy shadows around the room, illuminating bits and pieces of a puzzle that blurred before Leah's eyes. Then it calmed, as did the draft that had alarmed it, and settled into focus on a single square of space: September's dresser. There in a pool of sickly yellow, through a haze of tears, from beneath September's protective arm, Leah beheld that modest array of objects: the paper, the paints and brush, and an overturned photograph of a boy she had never known.

Outside the door of the tiny room, the music of the piano swelled to a crescendo, its chords penetrating the bolted barrier September had created, causing the floor to vibrate with their power.

"September..." Leah choked out. "That music..."

The girl's answer came surprisingly quickly, though gently; September still held Leah in her arms. "It's by a famous composer...his name was Beethoven. A German composer," she added with a note of pride.

_So that's what the accent is._

"That song, that...piece...what is it?"

September stroked her hair, as gradually her tears dried and her trembling ceased. "I think," she softly replied, "it's the one called the _Appassionata."_

Author's Note: There ya go. 11:00 at night. No further comment. Flarey not a night owl. Feedback...please, please, please, a thousand times please, and I will love you forever and ever. :-)


	2. Chapter One: Encounters

**Chapter One: Encounters  
  
**

**Two Years After Prologue**  
  


"You're never gonna sell any papes with that face."  
  


Skittery turned to glare at his fellow newsboy. Kid Blink's sunny smile was in place, like always, the sun sparkling on his blonde hair and illuminating the brown patch covering his left eye, genuinely necessary, but also certain to attract sympathy. He spoke with an air of superior knowledge as he enthusiastically brandished a newspaper at a passing couple. Blink did everything enthusiastically. It was enough to make Skittery feel sick.  
  


"My face ain't any different than it's been for the past four years," he pointed out glumly, and watched a wealthy-looking woman brush hurriedly past him, then stop to smile at Blink and hand him a nickel, telling him to keep the change. Skittery rolled his eyes. "And go back to your own sellin' spot," he snapped. "You're takin' all my customers."  
  


"Can always count on you to be a ray of sunshine, Skitt," Blink observed brightly. "See you at Medda's tonight," he added, before slapping Skittery on the back and heading down the street, already shouting another headline. Skittery stared dully after him, mouth unconsciously forming a pout. Kid really drove him crazy sometimes. How could a newsie...a street rat eking out a miserable, tedious existence, barely making ends meet, scrounging for food and sleeping in a tiny, shabby lodging house with twenty other boys...look at life like it was a bowl of cherries?  
  


"Plague strikes New York, state-wide deaths predicted!"  
  


Gradually, the new headline attracted buyers, gloomy face or not. Skittery sold his papers, one by one, with grim satisfaction. This proved Blink's opinion wrong, although no one had offered him a nickel yet. The article was actually about the usual outbreak of tuberculosis in the city slums. Skittery shuddered unconsciously. He hated neighborhoods like that. Of course, Duane Street wasn't exactly a stroll through the park, but at least there weren't whole gangs of murderers and thieves roaming there at night, or prostitutes beckoning and calling enticingly from the corners. Skittery's stomach turned at the thought.  
  


"Hey, Skittery!"  
  


Suppressing a grimace, he pivoted toward the voice. Jogging over to him was a muscular olive-skinned boy with curly brown hair. Skittery called a monosyllabic greeting, musing, _There're too many newsies in this city._  
  


"Hey," Mush Myers repeated, slowing to a stop and leaning against a nearby lamp-post to catch his breath. "You goin' to Medda's tonight? 'Most all of us are, and Jack wanted me to ask you."  
  


Skittery frowned in surprise. "What're you plannin' to do, skip the evenin' edition?"  
  


Mush stared at him for a moment, then laughed hesitantly. "Well...yeah. Why? You low on funds? Someone could always spot you for papes tomorrow." He made this offer out of a sense of duty; everyone knew Skittery never borrowed money.  
  


Knowing that this was common knowledge, Skittery snorted impatiently and ignored the proposition. Instead, he echoed his friend's earlier words. "'Low on funds'? 'Course I'm low on funds. I'm _always_ low on funds. We all are! We're _newsies,_ for God's sake. D'you really think you can skip an evenin' of sellin' for a vaudeville show and not end up goin' hungry the next day?"  
  


Mush flushed slightly under his dark complexion, and Skittery felt a brief pang of guilt. He should have used that one on Blink, whom it would have bounced right off, instead of sensitive Mush.  
  


His guilt was short-lived, however, due to Mush's next words. "C'mon, Skitt, lighten up," the boy advised with an only slightly embarassed grin. "You gotta love Medda's as much as the rest of us. Ain't like you never go there. And I heard there was gonna be plenty'a girls performin' tonight," he added with an irritating wiggle of his eyebrows.  
  


"Girls!" Skittery scoffed in reply. "Is that all you ever think about? Hundreds perished in plague, government runnin' outta medicine!" He interrupted himself to sell a few more papes before adding, "How 'bout spendin' some time thinkin' about whether you can pay for a bunk tonight, or where your next meal's comin' from?"  
  


Mush relaxed, relieved that the proposed topic of thought was not a difficult one. "I got a nickel for tonight," he announced, "even efter I pay for Medda's. And my next meal's comin' from Tibby's!" With that, he flashed an angelically triumphant grin and practically danced back toward his own selling corner, turning an impulsive and rather impressive backflip on the way.  
  


Skittery thrust a newspaper into the hands of his next customer with such force that the poor man was nearly knocked off his feet. Not only were there too many newsies in this city, but they were all far too _happy!_  
  


"Heya, Skitts!"  
  


The newsboy gritted his teeth, feeling one hand curl into a fist. _No way. This one's gotta be my imagination. Maybe if I ignore it, it'll go away..._

"S'madda? You look like a tree's about to fall on ya. Wait, you always look like that, don'cha? Comin' to Medda's tonight?"  
  


Resignedly, Skittery faced the speaker. He found that he had the pelasure of addressing a very short Italian boy in a white shirt, brown pants, and red-and-black checkered plaid vest. A black newsboy cap perched on his dark hair, and smoke swirled from a cigar pinched between his lips. Skittery nearly groaned aloud. If there was anything worse than a perpetually happy newsie like Blink, it was a perpetually happy and shockingly irresponsible newsie with an incredibly smart mouth. And if he heard that question one more time, he was honestly going to punch whoever asked it.  
  


"No," he replied, struggling to keep his voice even, "I ain't goin' to Medda's tonight." Remembering who he was talking to, he frowned. "You sayin' _you_ are? Don'cha hafta go throw your money away at the tracks like every other night?"

Racetrack raised an eyebrow. "When it's between that and _Medda?"_  
  


Recalling this particular boy's reaction to the red-haired performer on the night of the rally, his eyes nearly popping out of his head, Skittery conceded the point.  
  


"So," Race re-iterated, "ya gonna be there?"

"Why do youse all care so much anyway?" Skittery snapped. "Is there some requirement for every Duane Street newsie to go to Medda's on the same night?"  
  


"'Course not," laughed Race, "but if we didn't make you, you'd never go at all."  
  


"And there's some problem with never wastin' money and sellin' time at the theater?"  
  


"Yeah," Racetrack replied, his baby face becoming mock-solemn. "It means you'll never meet a girl in your life."  
  


_These guys have all share a single one-track mind!  
  
_

"Race," Skittery asked in a carefully patient tone, _"you_ ever 'met' a girl at Medda's...or anywhere else, for that matter?"  
  
__

"Nah," Race admitted cheerfully, blowing a thoughtful smoke ring. "But I'm plannin' on it."  
  


"I'm sure you are," Skittery muttered sarcastically, even as the gambler disappeared into the throng of pedestrians and the clouds of smog, like his two predecessors. "And if I listen to you and go to Medda's tonight, the two of us'll each meet the girls of our dreams, and they'll change our lives forever."  
  


A sudden breeze stirred the crisp September air, whipping a few dead leaves off the cobblestone sidewalk and into a brief miniature tornado. The unexpected gust skimmed a newspaper off the top of Skittery's stack, and sent it blowing down the street at a velocity that made giving chase pointless. Glaring after it, Skittery considered it a predictable stroke of misfortune and a valuable penny lost. He never thought to see it as the mark of a prophecy.

~~~***~~~

The sign read "Irving Hall", and depicted a beautiful woman with long red hair, wearing a rose-colored gown and lounging in a seductive pose. Slightly smaller letters below the name of the theater proclaimed, "Featuring Medda Larkson, the Swedish Meadowlark." Skittery didn't care if she was the Chinese Robin or the Spanish Owl or the New York Pigeon. She and her various doll-faced young employees were about to subject him to a night of music, dance, and merriment. He would rather eat glass.   
  


"Hey, Skitt! You gonna stand out there starin' at the sign all day, or come in and see Medda in person?"

Tearing his eyes away from the advertisement and blushing at the misunderstanding, Skittery responded to Jack's query by reluctantly entering the building. He was still sulking about being here at all. In the end, he'd had no choice. Of course, he could have made stacks of extra money selling papers tonight with the reduced number of newsies on the street, but it would have meant withstanding a roaring, jabbing, taunting, laughing, interrogating, pleading mob of boys earlier that evening. Giving in and seeing one vaudeville show beat staying home, if the latter meant having promises squeezed out of him to see every show for the next decade to make up for it.

_New York__ should pass a law against peer pressure._  
  


Inside the theater, Skittery started to follow Jack across the front lobby, giving a wide berth to the creepy clown selling candy near the door. But then his eye caught a small, ragged form accosting the clown, yelping pleas for various favorite treats. Had it been Les, Boots, or Slider, Skittery would have paid no mind, but this particular little newsboy was in a category of his own.

_"Skitt!"_ At the sight of the older boy, Tumbler promptly forgot about milking Toby for all he was worth, and spun around to affectionately attack his idol. "Look what I got! Gumdrops, licorice whips, all sortsa good stuff! Want some?"  
  


Gingerly accepting an emerald gumdrop from a rather grimy hand, Skittery chuckled in spite of himself. Tumbler was normally such a quiet kid. Clearly, none of his elders had thought to keep track of the amount of sugar he was consuming.  
  


"C'_mon." _ The youngster tugged impatiently on a still-hesitant Skittery's hand, as oblivious to his hero's perpetually dark mood as ever. "We'll be late for the show, and I wanna get us seats near Les and Boots and Slider, so's we can trade candies and all..."  
  


His halfhearted grumbles falling on deaf ears, Skittery allowed himself to be dragged into the interior of the theater, ignoring the laughter of Jack, who was bringing up the rear. Cowboy was one of those who knew Skittery well enough to remember his one weak spot. While he seemed immune to the charms of every other young child he came across, the cynic tended to melt a little around Tumbler.  
  


"All right, kid," he finally muttered, surrendering his last shred of resistance and helping his worshipper scan the already-packed audience. "We'll try and find a seat with your friends."

~~~***~~~

Racetrack grinned as the theater lights dimmed, lighting a new cigar and watching the curtain slowly draw aside to reveal a full stage. He loved vaudeville, loved any kind of performance. It wasn't as exciting as a horse race, of course, or a poker tournament; probably because there was no risk involved, no gamble. Race had a distinctly unhealthy passion for danger. But it was easy to get caught up in the fun of song and dance, and when it was beautiful girls performing, so much the better. Granted, he had never gone out with a girl in his life...shrimpy, smart-mouthed, chain-smoking gamblers never seemed to be in high demand...but it was always nice to dream.  
  


In the pit, a band struck up a loud, fast, bone-rattling song, the kind that makes one long to leap to one's feet and dance. And up on the stage, this was just what Medda did, flanked by half a dozen or so younger women and girls, all of whom leapt and kicked and twirled as if afraid that wild dancing would soon go out of fashion. Racetrack's eyes followed the swift, graceful movements and bright colors eagerly. He struggled to keep track of every move made by the much-admired redhead. His heart picked up speed along with the music, as Medda belted out a song, her voice easily carrying to the back row, and the sweet notes of her minions served as backup. The audience was soon cheering loudly and clapping along. Most of the newsboys were swept away by the action. Jack, Blink, and Specs leapt to their feet, shouting encouragement to the star, Blink grinning like an idiot, desperately trying to flatten his hair with one hand and looking ready to attack the stage at any moment. Race probably would have joined them, had it not been for the distractions that presented themselves.  
  


First it was glancing around at his fellow newsies to see if they were all enjoying the show as much as he was. Bumlets, Dutchy, Snoddy, and Jake, all too shy for blatant displays of affection, leaned forward in their seats, starry-eyed and rapturous. Next to his best friend Jack, David mimicked them, though his cheeks resembled cranberries. Mush's reaction was similar, with the addition of a melting smile and frequent shrill whistles. Snaps sat behind him, nodding rhythmically and snapping his fingers to the beat.  
  


In a middle row lurked the infamous gang of rugrats. Les, Tumbler, Slider, and Boots were enthusiastically trading candy, more-or-less ignoring the stage. Snipeshooter alternated between puffing furiously on a stolen cigar, trying to assume an expression of mature disgust, and succumbing to his childish sweet tooth whenever the temptation of a licorice whip became too strong. In the midst of the brat pack slouched Skittery, arms crossed over his chest, eyes narrow, teeth clenched, as if enduring a soul-wrenching torture session.

In the back of the room, Pie Eater haunted the refreshment tables, digging into a slice of apple pie and chatting cheerfully with Crutchy, who was probably back there just to keep him company. Crutchy's sole goal in life was to make sure everyone was always happy. Not far from them lounged Swifty, flirting with a beaming, curly-haired girl.  
  


Snitch and Itey were nowhere to be seen. With a vague sinking feeling, Race easily summed up the scenario: Snitch was probably working the crowds, pinching every coin and wristwatch and fancy pair of cufflinks he could get his hapless fingers on, and he had likely made Itey stand watch for him as usual. How long would it be before Cowboy threw those two out of the lodging house again? They were always going back to the same trick, partly because Snitch was such a kleptomaniac, and partly in protest of _still_ being forced to share a bed.  
  


Gesturing at the stage, Swifty said something inaudible to his female companion, which made her blush and giggle. Racetrack arched an eyebrow and looked away.  
  


As he turned his head, it was by pure chance that his gaze skimmed over the pit, where the band played diligently, ignored by the rest of the spectators. They were invisible; only their music mattered. Race had certainly never taken any notice of them before; so it was odd, now, that his eyes should be drawn to the corner of the pit, where a grand piano was situated. Now that he considered it, he was suddenly struck by the music that swelled from that instrument. Its fast-paced chords were rich and smooth, played with both skill and passion. The quality of the playing was especially surprising when Race considered the player. Shattering the image of a grim-faced, elderly male musician, the type that Race had always supposed to occupy the pit, he was startled to realize that the pianist was a young girl. From here, she looked rather slight, clad in a midnight-blue gown that appeared to be too long for her, and the edge of the spotlight caught a cascade of wavy dark hair. The view of the band at this distance and in the dim light was frustratingly vague, and Race could hear the impressive piano music just as well when facing the radiant stage performers. But once his eyes had found the girl at the piano, they seemed fixed on her, never once wavering as the minutes flew by.

~~***~~~

"Skitt! Wake up! It's over!"  
  


Groaning and reluctantly raising his head from the cushion formed by his arms, Skittery looked around, blinking rapidly and drowsily. When his surroundings came into focus, he was treated to the welcome sight of a throng of people streaming down the aisle, each row of seats emptying as the men, women, and children of the audience rose to their feet, stretching and smiling contentedly, and poured out the door of Irving Hall. Medda and company remained on the stage, waving and blowing kisses and taking last-minute curtsys. A few flowers and sashes came spiraling through the air, and Skittery spotted Race shaking himself out of some kind of stupor and leaping desperately for Medda's fan.  
  


"Thank God," he muttered, dragging his stiff and aching body out of his seat.  
  


"For what?" Tumbler chirped curiously, hopping up as well and scurrying toward the aisle.  
  


"Nothin', kid," Skittery muttered, though his young companion was already rushing to catch up with his contemporaries.  
  


"Hey, Skittery!"  
  


Pushing through the crowd, Skittery glanced around for the source of the voice. It was Racetrack, he realized by the rising trail of smoke, and he had already gathered a small group of newsies around him. Joining them, Skittery noticed that the awful purple fan was absent. No doubt it had been caught by someone bigger than Race, a description which fit about ninety-eight percent of the audience.  
  


"Skitt," Race spoke up brightly the moment Skittery joined the group, "spot me a few bits? There's a poker game..." He lifted his chin toward the far corner of the vast room, in which a few chairs set up around a table were occupied, and one man was shuffling a deck of cards.  
  


Skittery glanced around at the other five boys Race had managed to round up. None of them looked sympathetic to Race's cause; maybe they were smarter than he had given them credit for. He, for his part, snorted. "Right. After missin' an evenin' of sellin', you expect me to hand over my last few coins and never see 'em again?"  
  


"Well," Race admitted, "there really wasn't ever any _expect _involved, but it was worth a try...and o' course you'd see 'em again!" The gambler's pleading eyes skimmed his friends. "Youse all know I'd win!"  
  


"Sure you'd win," Jack replied with a grin. "But then, between this place and the lodgin' house, you'd mysteriously be drawn on a detour to Sheepshead..."  
  


"Sorry, Race," Mush chipped in regretfully, "but if I hafta borrow papes from Blink again—"  
  


"--he's dead," Blink finished cheerfully.  
  


"You could always sell your pocket watch," Bumlets suggested innocently, earning a glare from Race. No one could quite comprehend his attachment to that watch.  
  


"I'd spot ya," piped up a small, solemn voice, "but Snipes is already spottin' _me." _ Tumbler, face and hands coated with sticky colored sugar, had broken away from his gang to see what his elders were up to.  
  


"Listen to this! Forsaken even by the pipsqueaks!" Ignoring Tumbler's indignation at the use of this insensitive term, Race shook his head despairingly at the posse, dismissively flicked a cigar ash at them, and proceeded right on over to the poker table.  
  


Skittery glanced around at the other five remaining boys. "He'll never convince 'em to let him play on credit."  
  


"And if he does," Blink added, "he'll hafta walk home alone."  
  


_"At _night. _In_ New York," Jack recited dutifully, rolling his eyes. Their leader paused, sighed, and finally concluded, "I'm guessin' we should wait for him."  
  


Skittery nodded glumly, as did the others, even little Tumbler. The six of them headed outside to wait by the door and count the seconds before it opened again.

~~~***~~~

Racetrack glanced dejectedly around the theater. It was almost completely empty now. All of the performers and musicians had left except Medda, who had retreated into the back room, where she slept. She would probably emerge in a few hours to kick out the poker players, who were the last remaining audience members. Not only had his friends refused to lend him money...not that that was anything new...but his fellow gamblers had indeed refused any offer but cash. The spotlight had been turned off, and the room was so dark that Race didn't even see how they could distinguish their cards. He considered sticking around to watch the game, but had a pretty good idea that a few newsies would be waiting for him outside.  
  


_May as well get goin'._  
  


But as his hand fell on the doorknob, Race happened to cast one last wistful glance back at the poker game. And it was then, squinting across the dim theater, that he noticed something rather out of the ordinary that hadn't caught his eye before. Behind the poker table, removed from the small horde of gambling boys, a small, slim shape stood in a cloak of shadow. Adding to the curiosity surrounding this figure was one distinctive feature: on either side of the silhouette, the unmistakable sweep of a skirt.  
  


Of course, the others _were_ waiting...  
  


_Aw, let 'em wait._ A lone girl hanging around a theater at night was too precious an opportunity to lose. His mind made up, Race did an about-face and retraced his steps, which became somewhat hesitant as he approached the dark corner. He passed the gamblers, who ignored him, and eyed the mysterious shadow.  
  


"Hey," he called softly.  
  


The shadow started violently.  
  


"Sorry," Race murmured quickly. "Didn't mean to scare you. I was just wonderin'...who you...why...I mean..."  
  


Putting a merciful end to his awkward stuttering, the shadow took several tentative steps forward, discarding its cloak of shadow and emerging into a stream of moonlight entering through a nearby window. Race's brown eyes widened, expanding so quickly that it was almost as if they hungered for a clearer view of the scene before him.   
  


The natural, milky silver-white moonlight illuminated her more perfectly than any spotlight could have done. She was perhaps three inches shorter than Race, which placed her considerably low on the height scale. Jet-black locks gathered on top of her head in a deep blue satin ribbon, then tumbled down her back like ocean waves at midnight. It was almost chilling how much the moonlight flattered that hair, bringing out azure and silvery tones and causing it to shimmer like a sheet of prismatic ebony silk. It was undoubtedly her most striking feature, though her face had a disturbingly flawless quality, and the current lighting lent it an air of incandescence which suggested a candle lit behind her rose-blossom cheeks. Her eyes were large, glittering emeralds, set off in a rather clashing manner by the sapphire of her gown. As for the gown, it clung mercilessly to her body, emphasizing her flat chest and lack of the figure that often started to develop in girls her age; it also trailed the floor, hiding her feet completely. Race thought it rather resembled a giant blue cocoon from which a tiny, jewel-like butterfly was emerging.  
  


"Did you want something?"  
  


Her voice must have been the strangest he had ever heard. There was something in it that was bold, almost brash, eager and lighthearted; but there were other, contradictory ingredients mixed in...startled, timid, frightened. A mere five syllables suggested a complexity that made Race's mind spin.

"What? No...I mean...I...was just wonderin' what you were doin' back there." Race smiled and shrugged. If she'd been skulking near a bunch of older adolescents and young men in the midst of a rowdy poker game, he figured she wouldn't be frightened of some baby-faced shrimp with a cigar hanging out of his mouth.  
  


"Doing?" she murmured in a tone of cool, smooth crystal, tipping her head slightly to the side, so that a few blue-black locks whispered across her white forehead. "I was...waiting."  
  


"Waiting?" Race frowned slightly. "For...someone?"  
  


She paused thoughtfully; then a ghost of a smile flickered across her lips. "Yeah...yeah, I guess I was.: Her eyes flicked over Race's shoulder, toward the door, then shyly drifted to the floor. The next time she spoke, her voice had changed yet again...now it was a childish mumble, slightly embarassed. "I was...waiting for someone to walk me home."  
  


Race's heart leapt, then plunged a moment later when he remembered. "Um...well, see," he explained with more regret than he cared to ponder right now, "I'd love to do the honors, but I kinda got a feeling there are some friends of mine hangin' around outside, and—"  
  


The girl's eyes danced; she cut him off with a gentle, melodic laugh. "Oh," she assured him airily, "I don't mind." She extended a minute porcelain hand. "I'm Tanya, by the way."  
  


Race raised his hand to his mouth, pulled it away again hurriedly, and shook hers, nonplussed. "Racetrack Higgins. Er...if you don't mind my askin'...if you're not scared to walk home with a buncha teenage guys, why d'you need someone to walk you home at all?"  
  


Abruptly, something odd happened to her face; it was almost as if a mask slipped over it. Her smile melted, the sparkle dulled from her green eyes, the roses faded from her cheeks. With a single step, she removed herself from the bar of moonlight, and Race resisted the urge to push her back into it; she had donned her cloak of shadow again.  
  


"It isn't that," explained a voice that was emotionless, offhand, and guarded. "I'm not afraid of anything, or anyone, that might be out there in the city streets at night."

"No?" Racetrack couldn't keep a degree of incredulity from his voice.  
  


"No," Tanya echoed calmly. "I'm just afraid to be alone."

~~~***~~~

Skittery lounged against the side of the building, puffing absently on a cigar and going through a long list of morbid reasons for Race's failure to appear. Jack and Bumlets had resorted to a fencing match with sticks, and Blink and Mush had nearly exhausted their list of attractive females from Manhattan to Jersey. The sugar's effects seemed to have worn off of Tumbler; he had curled up by the sidewalk and fallen sound asleep. Skittery was picturing yet another graphic demise for poor Race, and about ready to follow Tumbler's example, when the door of Irving Hall finally creaked open.  
  


"'Bout time!" Jack proclaimed, dropping his makeshift sword and turning a peevish glare toward the sound. "We were ready to leave without—"  
  


He was cut off in mid-sentence when his gaze fell on the door. Racetrack had emerged, all right...but he was not alone. A tiny, dark-haired girl in a long blue dress, her face lit up with a smile somewhere between shy and flirtatious, stood at his side.  
  


Jack's eyebrows disappeared under the brim of his cowboy hat, and a low whistle escaped his lips. "Wow. Nice goin', Race."  
  


Race smacked at Jack with his hat, and his companion giggled. Mush and Bumlets were smiling shyly at her, and Blink looked like the price of papers had just been lowered to a penny per hundred. As for Skittery, he was uncomfortably certain that his eyes resembled those of the other boys upon sight of Medda. Race caught his eye, and the smug smirk he flashed made Skittery's blood boil. If there was anything worse than someone with a head full of hopelessly ridiculous fantasies, it was when those fantasies came true.  
  


"Guys," Race was saying, "this's Tanya. Her apartment's on the way back to the lodgin' house, so we're just gonna drop her off, 'kay?"  
  


Blink stepped forward eagerly, flashing his trusty smile. "I'd be honored to accompany you, milady," he assured her, taking her hand and bowing over it before kissing it gallantly and looping his arm through hers.  
  


Tanya, smile widening and eyes twinkling with mischief, nodded deeply to Blink with mock formality. "Thank you kindly for your services, sir," she murmured, all innocence and honey, and promptly linked her other arm through Racetrack's. Crimson swept over his face, and Jack snickered while Mush and Bumlets timidly edged closer. Skittery's stomach clenched until he was sure he would be sick.  
  


_Perfect ending to a perfect night.__ After a thoroughly delightful evening trying to sleep in an uncomfortable chair surrounded by bright lights and loud music and screaming, drooling idiots, I'll get to walk home listening to them make idiots of themselves yet again, over some giggly little thirteen-year-old jewel._  
  


Meanwhile, Race and Blink had already started to lead this "jewel" down the street, the others in tow. Skittery began to follow, then smacked himself in the forehead, wheeled around, and hurried over to the curb.  
  


"Tumbler. Hey, Tumbler!" Shaking the sleepy little newsie, Skittery smiled slightly, realizing this would make them even as far as waking each other up.  
  


"Huh?" The rugrat's eyes fluttered open, and he accepted Skittery's hand so as to be dragged to his feet.  
  


"C'mon. We're leavin'."  
  


Trotting alongside Skittery to catch up with the others, Tumbler wrinkled his nose in horrified realization as they drew closer. "Ugh! A girl!"  
  


The corners of Skittery's mouth twitched again. _I knew there was some reason I liked this kid._  
  


"...Tanya was the one playin' the piano at Medda's," Racetrack was announcing with a touch of pride as they joined the group. "You sounded _amazin',"_ he added to Tanya, with a sincerity that surprised the skeptical Skittery. "Where on earth didja learn to play like that?"  
  


"From the man who used to play at Irvin'," Tanya replied, sounding neither boastful of her talent nor modest, but merely matter-of-fact. "He was gettin' ready to retire when I came to Medda for a job, so he figured he'd train a replacement. Dunno what he saw in me...I was a scrawny eleven-year-old runt who'd barely touched a piano before."  
  


She was more talkative than Skittery had expected. Actually, he admitted to himself, he had assumed that something so pretty and delicate wouldn't even be capable of intelligent conversation. Still, the other boys' foolish smiles, arm-linking, and playful vying for the position nearest to their guest were already grinding his nerves.  
  


"He musta recognized an angel when he saw one," Blink suggested smoothly.  
  


_Snap,_ went a nerve.  
  


"You said your apartment's on Mott Street?" Race changed the subject quickly, clearly wishing to steer Blink away from an opportunity for another compliment. Tanya nodded.  
  


"I live there with a girl named Alice. She dances for Medda, but she was just there to help set up tonight, and she went home early; usually she would've walked with me. The pay ain't bad, and we pool our wages each month and split the rent."  
  


"What's she look like?" Jack asked cheerfully. "I might've seen her tonight."  
  


_I'll bet you did,_ Skittery mused dryly. _Bet you were takin' every possible chance to look at other girls since Sarah was workin' tonight._

"Curly brown hair, blue eyes, laughs a lot..."  
  


"Oh yeah," Blink interrupted, grinning. "Saw Swifty talkin' to her. She couldn't hold a candle to her roommate, though."  
  


He'd managed to find his opportunity after all. _Ping__,_ went another nerve.  
  


"So, Tanya," Mush asked casually in his unobtrusive way, "you play poker?" While Mush received a death glare from Blink and a grateful smile from Race, Tanya shrugged.  
  


"Never tried it. Never knew a girl who did. But I wouldn't mind learnin' sometime."  
  


"There's a tournament comin' up at our lodgin' house..." Race informed her hopefully.  
  


_Twang. _Skittery was running out of nerves. He didn't care about hearing Tanya's answer; he couldn't stand another moment of this. If he didn't get out of here now, he was going to do something regrettable, like massacre his friends...  
  


"Hey, Skitt." Skittery started at the whisper behind him; he had forgotten Tumbler's presence.

"Yeah, kid?" he whispered back.  
  


"Can we get outta here?"  
  


Skittery didn't even bother taking a few seconds to be depressed that his kindred spirit was a ten-year-old. Coinciding with Tumbler's request was the ridiculously convenient apperance of a discreet, dingy-looking brick alley leading off to the left, between a couple smog-spewing factories. The chance was too perfect to waste. Grabbing the arm of the only other sensible person present, Skittery yanked both of them from the group and stealthily veered into the alleyway. The operation took only a split second. Glancing back briefly to make sure their flight hadn't been detected, Skittery frowned slightly and hurried on through the alley, Tumbler at his side. Not one of the boys had seemed to notice their departure. They'd all had their eyes glued to Tanya, as he had expected. What he hadn't counted on was Tanya herself. He could swear that he had seen those bright green eyes quickly follow them into the alley before returning to Race...and that her hand had flown to her mouth to muffle a very soft laugh.  
  


Once he and Tumbler emerged safely on the other side of the alley, however, any worries about Racetrack's observant little "jewel" became the last thing on Skittery's mind.

~~~***~~~

The street they had stepped into was lined with low wooden buildings. Even in the darkness, Skittery managed to note a few key details: rotting boards, broken windows, faded signs proclaiming the names of bars or nightclubs, and a few especially subtle, shadow-robed structures with no signs at all. From behind the doors drifted the powerful smell of alcohol, accompanied by the sounds of hushed voices, and the occasional high, girlish or deep, rumbling laugh. The street itself was completely littered with cigar stubs, discarded food scraps, and broken glass. Eyeing them nervously, Skittery noticed with a sinking feeling that the watery moonlight that made them visible was steadily weakening. As if things weren't bad enough, a heavy white fog had begun to steal over the city without warning. Tendrils of it snaked through the street, obscuring glittering shards and yawning doorways from view. Combined with the smothering smog wafted from the nearby factories, it was quickly making navigation virtually impossible.  
  


Near the door to one particularly grim-looking bar, still untouched by the silent, predatory mist, something silver and razor-sharp gleamed dully. Skittery's heart clenched; he didn't even want to know. Tumbler, following his gaze, gulped.  
  


"Maybe sneakin' off wasn't such a good idea," he piped up in a small voice.  
  


With great effort, Skittery bit back half a dozen sardonic, morbid replies. In his own way, his mouth was as bad as Racetrack's. Anger and pessimism would do them no good now; he had to consider their options.  
  


"We should head back—"  
  


Tumbler shook his head immediately. "That's where the fog's comin' from. Guess it's rollin' in off the river. It'll cut us off; we wouldn't be able to go ten feet in that direction. We'll have to head down this street and try to keep ahead of it."

Skittery stared. That kid...sometimes he would act his age or even younger, and other times, his mind shocked you like lightning.  
  


"You're right," he admitted respectfully, and shot an anxious glance at the newly threatening fog, which continued to creep forward. "We'd better get movin'." Without further ado, he grabbed the younger boy's hand and reluctantly plunged down the ominous street and into the dense, unwelcoming haze.  
  


Walking through the fog was like swimming underwater in a very cloudy lake. The difference was that, when you had trouble navigating in a lake, you could always come to the surface. But there seemed to be no escaping the fog. A particularly raucous chorus of laughter sounded from the side of the street, and Skittery gripped Tumbler more tightly. It was terrifying not knowing whether some of the noises he heard came from behind the crumbling or half-open doors, or from outside the buildings, right there in the street with them. The continuous cadence of glass crunching beneath their feet and rats scurrying along the curb added no sense of comfort to the atmosphere.  
  


_The end of the street.__ The end of the fog. _Those ten words echoed rhythmically in Skittery's mind, in harmony with his footsteps. They represented the safe haven, the single glimmer of hope, the light at the end of the tunnel. If only they could turn off the street and emerge from this smothering blanket, his heart would stop pounding, and the beads of cold sweat would evaporate from his forehead. They would make it home, back to the lodging house, and listen to Kloppman's familiar curfew lecture and the boys' teasing.

"Goin' somewhere?"

Two pairs of footsteps stopped dead in their tracks. Four more pairs took several steps toward the owners of the first two.  
  


It was like a horror story, Skittery thought wildly, like a nightmare. Four massive, shadowy, formless monsters looming up in the fog. Of course, "formless" wasn't quite accurate. They were massive, all right, but quite distinctly human. When he squinted, he could even make out the objects three of them were extending as casually as if they were birthday presents: a baseball bat, a giant stick, and a knife. The fourth and smallest thug seemed to be weaponless, but a stray streak of moonlight provided a dim view of a feral grin that would have haunted Skittery's dreams forever, if there had been any chance of his living through this.

Poor Tumbler actually answered the question. "N-no," he stammered, nearly squeezing Skittery's hand off. "We ain't goin' nowhere."  
  


A round of snickers answered this statement, and one of the leering jack-o'-lantern faces leaned down closer to Tumbler. "Damn right you ain't, kid."  
  


"Got any money?" the little one demanded eagerly, in a voice that made Skittery picture a talking rat.  
  


"No," he replied quickly, one hand drifting to his pocket to keep the coins from jingling.  
  


"No," Tumbler parroted a few octaves too high, though truthfully in his case.  
  


"No?" came the final echo, flat and cold as stone, from the thug with the baseball bat. It was followed by a dry laugh. "That's bad news for you. No one passes through here without payin' a toll."  
  


_Sure,_ Skittery thought sarcastically, _I'm sure that's all you want._ He knew full well that he could hand them every cent he had and they would still be dead.  
  


He wished there were something he could say or do, anything, even if it wouldn't work, even if it was hopeless and pointless...anything to make him feel less helpless. But he was frozen in place, unable even to come up with any decent last words, or to motivate his mouth to speak them. Running would be laughable; there were four of them, they were much bigger and older and probably faster, and they knew the neighborhood. All he could do was step slightly in front of Tumbler as the thugs closed in, and note, randomly and without a shred of revelance, that a breeze was stirring up and starting to clear the fog. A few moments earlier, that realization would have delighted him. Now it meant nothing. A knife was flashing through the air, a stick was swinging forward, he was never going to sell another newspaper.

"Leave 'em alone."  
  


Three weapons and one fist stopped as abruptly as Skittery and Tumbler had at the appearance of the thugs. Six pairs of eyes swiveled toward the source of the new voice.  
  


It was a soft voice. Gentle. Not fierce, but not pleading. It wasn't a cautious voice, or a bold one. It was bright, like a star, and calmly unafraid, like a child who had never known danger.  
  


These thoughts might not have been very logical, but Skittery's mind was not behaving very logically at the moment, for what was perhaps one of the first times in his life. Directly in front of them, much of the mist had dispersed, though wisps of it still swirled around the girl like some kind of mystic vapor. She stood perfectly still on the street corner...the _corner,_ Skittery realized with awe...that was how close they had come to escaping the street. In the night, she was just a shadow, small and barely worth any notice, except that her words had just temporarily saved his life.  
  


She had brown eyes. They were gentle, bright, and filled with as much wonder as if she were watching a ring of faeries dance in the moon. The rest of her was all shadow, but she certainly had brown eyes.  
  


"S'madda?" the one with the stick slurred mockingly in her direction, the scent of beer on his breath. "Favorite customer o' yours?"  
  


"It ain't healthy to interfere with this kinda thing, goil," the knife-wielder informed her, and the flash of steel again made Skittery stumble backward.  
  


"Want me to give your names to Madame?"  
  


The girl phrased this question very quickly, and it caused Baseball Bat to knock Knife's arm aside in one frantic motion.  
  


"You're one'a Madame's?" he demanded sharply.  
  


"She's in tonight, if you want to ask her. Or you could check with my friend September, or Story on the next corner...isn't she your favorite?"  
  


Despite the ugly implications of the words, her voice didn't lose its "bright star" quality; she still sounded like she was describing a glorious sunset or a meadow of wildflowers, not a grapevine of whores. There was something so simple, so _innocent, _in her tone that made her obvious profession all the more sickening to Skittery.  
  


The young man with the stick swore fluently, but reluctantly lowered his vessel of destruction. "Hey, I ain't stainin' my name with Madame. Youse know what she's like 'round here. She practically owns all them goils. I ain't gettin' snubbed on ev'ry corner from here to Harlem."  
  


And like a miracle, like snapping a horror novel shut and turning on the light to reassure yourself, or waking up after a bad dream, four menacing shapes, amid curses and grunts of disgust, turned and went their separate ways, dispersing as quickly and silently as the fog.  
  


After making sure that each of the monsters had vanished into a building or through the blasted alley that had gotten them into this mess, Skittery turned back toward the street corner. He was greeted with an empty patch of darkness.  
  


"Wow!" Tumbler spoke for the first time since denying that he had any money. "She's gone!" Evidently, he too had looked away for an instant. Now he blinked several times, frowned at the corner, and turned blankly to Skittery. "Who was she? Why'd she help us? How'd she disappear that fast?"  
  


Skittery sighed deeply. Tumbler was smart, all right, but there were some things to which you should remain ignorant as long as possible. "I dunno, kid," he muttered.  
  


"She just popped up one minute and then disappeared!" Tumbler marvelled. His memory of the girl seemed to stick firmly in his mind, pushing away the fear of their near-fatal encounter. "Just like that," he added in awe. "Like she was some kinda spook."  
  


From a nearby doorway, a very brief crystaline laugh pierced the night. Skittery didn't even have time to react before the sound of a door snapping shut, and silence. He smiled wanly at his young companion.  
  


"Sure, kid, that's what she was...a spook. Now, let's get outta here and go tell the guys about our adventure."

~~~***~~~

"You did _what?_ You were _where?_ You met up with _who__?"_

Skittery rolled his eyes at Jack's shocked sputtering. "Ran off to get away from you idiots. Some seedy street through an alley off Broome. Four thugs who tried to kill us," he muttered for the umpteenth time.  
  


"And the spook!" Tumbler added cheerfully. "Don't forget the spook! She's the one that saved us."  
  


_"She?"_ Race repeated, gaping. A grin spread across his face. "Skitt, does this mean you met a girl after all?"  
  


"Shut up," Skittery snapped, going cold at the very implication, considering the nature of the girl Race was unwittingly referring to.  
  


"Hey, knock it off," Pie Eater suggested to the group that had surrounded Skittery and Tumbler and listened intently to their story throughout each telling and re-telling. "Kloppman'll hear us and come swingin' with his broom, and anyway, wouldn't you wanna get some sleep after somethin' like that happened to ya?"  
  


"Yeah, we'd better get to bed," Racetrack agreed through a yawn. "We'll prob'ly be up all night tomorrow with the poker tournament...which Tanya will be attendin'," he added with a dreamy, satisfied smile.  
  


_Figures.__ Two of his friends return from a near-death experience, and all he can think about is the next time he'll see his precious jewel._  
  


So a drowsy procession headed across the lodging-house lobby and back into the bunkroom, Boots and Slider finishing up a quiet wooden-sword fight, Snitch and Itey arguing in whispers about who hogged the space in their shared top bunk, and Jake wearing the huge, maniacal grin he generally wore when tired.  
  


Utterly drained from his harrowing experience, Skittery barely had the strength to clap Tumbler on the back, mutter a good night to him, and scramble into his bed. But when he closed his eyes, sleep refused to come. He listened as the others got into their bunks and settled down, calling soft good nights around the room. He listened until he was surrounded by even breathing, but the thoughts pounding inside his skull refused to let him rest.  
  


_"...Story on the next corner...isn't she your favorite?"_  
  


_"I ain't gettin' snubbed on ev'ry corner from here to __Harlem__."_  
  


Snatches of words he had heard that night played back in his head, forcing him to elude the seductive pull of dreamless oblivion. And occasionally, another sentence streaked across his mind like a comet, the only one among them which had not been spoken that night, but had been shouted three years ago.  
  


_"They're trash, garbage, the lowest anyone can ever sink! They're the dirt we walk on in the street!"_  
  


He had shouted those words, and regretted them almost every day since. But he had never stopped believing them.  
  


Absently, his hand slipped under his pillow, connecting with something small, flat, and square. His fingers gingerly pinched its edges.  
  


_"Leave 'em alone."_  
  


His hand suddenly tightened into a fist, crushing the fragile square beneath his pillow into a crumpled wad. It was only after that, after a moment had passed and his fist relaxed, that he was able to close his eyes and allow consciousness to fade.  
  


"Skitt?"  
  


The voice came from far away, and while it conjured up a dim picture of a short Italian, it didn't mean much to Skittery. "Yeah?" he muttered, already three-quarters asleep.  
  


"What'd she look like?" If he had been truly awake, he would have heard that the tone was teasing, but he wasn't, and did not.  
  


"Look like..." he repeated drowsily, and a series of images and impressions crossed the void his mind was becoming. "Dark, like a shadow...dark, but her voice was light. She was nothin' like the jewel at all...like a star, like a candle burnin' in the dark." Luckily for Skittery, sleep came at that point to overtake him, and only four more syllables slipped from his lips before he succumbed.  
  


"She had brown eyes."  
  
  



	3. Chapter Two: A Day In the Life

Author's Note: I am the greatest slacker known to man. It is in my nature, and I seem to be unable to escape it. sigh But here, at last, is an update! Of course, it's an update with _no newsies_ in it, but that would be because I split what was originally intended to be one chapter into two. Why? 'Cause if I hadn't, this update would've taken even longer, and someone woulda had me assassinated.

One more important thing. All my NML girls know I love 'em, as well as my new ff.net reviewers, but there is one under-appreciated person to whom I want to give a HUGE Shout Out right now.

**StormShadow--**Oh my goodness. I love you. So very, very much. You are the most wonderful, most faithful, sweetest, kindest, most detailed, most stalkerish, most altogether spiffy reviewer I can imagine. For stalking me throughout _all_ my fics, for giving me so many _beautiful _reviews, most of which I didn't deserve -, and for having _inhumanly _incredible patience with my snail-paced updates and random long-term abandonment of fics, my deepest, most heartfelt thanks. I commend and salute you infinite times, and would go on and on, but I know you just want me to get to the fic. ;-)

**Chapter Two: A Day in the Life**  
  
"Sep-tem-ber! Rise and shine! Up and at 'em!"

The unnaturally chipper singsong voice, belonging to a small girl with shoulder-length coal-black hair and a pastey white complexion, earned her a badly-aimed pillow and a stream of German curses.

"You're lucky I can't understand any'a that."

"Yeah?" September muttered, dragging herself over to the ladder of her top bunk and half-stumbling, half-sliding down the rungs. "What'd ya do if you could, _mädchen?"_

"Subject you to a long description of the beautiful sunrise I just watched," the smaller girl replied cheerfully as September staggered over to their dresser and frantically splashed some water on her face from a chipped basin.

September's initial response was a sort of half-hearted growl. After a few more handfuls of water, however, she became a bit more articulate.

"Leah," she demanded, whirling on her roommate, whose brown eyes instantly widened with innocence. "Where the hell were you last night?"

Though the outcome was obvious, Leah attempted to prolong her life a little. "Working?" she suggested innocently.

September glared at her hairbrush. Even now, after having lived with the girl for two years, it was hard for her to do any scolding or interrogating while looking down at those bright eyes and that soft, angelic smile. "You and every girl on the street," she snapped, viciously tugging at a snarl in her brown hair. "Y'know what I mean, kid."

"Oh, after work?" Playing with a thread on the collar of her ragged black dress, Leah gave a brief inward sigh of resignation. "I was, well...I kinda...ran into some..._aquaintances."_

The way she pronounced that word immediately gained September's full attention; her hairbrush clattered to the dresser, and she turned around and crossed her arms expectantly. "All right, spit it out."

Unraveling the thread at record speed, Leah let out a nervous breath. "Well, out in the street on my way here, I kinda ran into...Mike and Rat and some other guys...and they were botherin' a couple boys, so I told 'em to stop."

"You told 'em _what!?"_ September jumped forward so suddenly and wrathfully that she might have been ready to murder someone herself, but Leah didn't budge, merely rephrasing her statement thoughtfully.

"I said, 'Leave 'em alone'."

"You...said...to...they..." September shut up abruptly, glare deepening; helpless stuttering was not exactly her style. "Well...did they?" she finally asked.

Leah's smile quickly returned, lighting up her face like a candle. She nodded happily.

September snorted. "Figures." Shaking her head as if the thugs' indulgence of Leah had some deeply sinister meaning, she nevertheless backed off, stripping off her cotton nightgown and donning her usual forest-green dress. She completed her morning ritual by stalking over to Leah's bottom bunk and absently straightening the covers. As she did, her eye caught sight of a splash of color on the single thin white sheet. Upon closer inspection, the dark blue stain spoke for itself, and she groaned aloud.

"I see you still had time to _paint_ last night." The contempt with which September spat out the verb was exactly what most people would use for terms like _cockroach._

"Hmm?" Leah glanced up in surprise; in the few seconds that September had been making the bed, she'd managed to unravel about three feet of thread from her dress before it broke, and was now arranging it in pleasant patterns on the dresser top. "Oh, yeah! I just had to, with that lovely fog. I mixed black and white and a little blue. It made the prettiest color, kind of like moonlight. Well, not so much after I added the yellow."

September, who had been about to launch into one of her tirades about Leah's frivolous and wasteful habits, was momentarily sidetracked by this last statement. _"Yellow?"_ she echoed, frowning incredulously.

"Yeah," Leah confirmed enthusiastically, "for the smog."

"The smog." September had to pursue the subject in spite of herself; she was confused and wanted an explanation. "So basically, you painted this 'lovely' silvery sorta mist, then ruined it by addin' that ugly yellow--" She gestured toward a paint can on the dresser. "--just to show that there was _smog_ mixed in?"

Leah laughed in delight, most likely at her friend's rare display of interest in the subject of art. "Well, you know, 'tember," she replied patiently, "you can't just leave it out."

And while September was still pondering this odd statement, Leah flashed her a final Christmas-card smile and disappeared through the bedroom door, out into the cellar bar where the two of them worked during the day.

September's eyes followed her until the door snapped shut behind her. Then she shook her head again and turned back to the bed, determined to give the pillowcase one last tug before following Leah to a day of serving drinks and scrubbing dishes.

What she found in the process of adjusting the pillow, however, made her freeze.

For a moment, she merely stared. Then, slowly, her fingers reached out to brush the yellowed, tattered sheet of paper. She didn't even realize that they were trembling. The painting that Leah had spoken of so proudly, the swirls of silver-blue fog with the ugly yellow mixed in, the shadowy forms that had developed in the midst of the fog from smooth, careful brush strokes...all of it was blurring before September's eyes. For there was one form that stood out more sharply and clearly than the rest, and if Leah had ever possessed any real skill as a painter, which, for the most part, she hadn't, then she had used it on that single figure. With the sight of it, two realizations hit September at once, so hard that she nearly staggered off her feet.

Tugging her fingers away from the painting as if they had been burned, September fled the bedroom, slamming the door behind her. This indication of her extreme distress went unnoticed, however, for despite the early hour, business was already booming in O'Leary's. One would think that a tiny, dingy bar located in the basement of such a less-than-respectable establishment would not attract many customers; but laughing, roaring, chattering men, drinks in hand and women draped over their arms, whizzed all around the place like so many colorful, loudly buzzing fruit flies. The din was enough to drown out a stampede of elephants.

Ignoring the usual chaos, September glanced frantically around the room. Finally, her eyes fell on their quarry, and her heart sank.

Leah was leaning over one of the tables, her stained barmaid's apron swishing around her ankles and practically trailing the floor, as usual. She was scrubbing the tabletop with a damp rag, and she was smiling. These two circumstances were not at all unusual, but there was something distant in her light-up smile, something especially dreamy and animated in the sparkle of her pretty brown eyes...and from the steady, absentminded motion of her hand, she had been scrubbing that same spot for quite a while.

"Hey! Don't anyone get any drinks 'round here? We got one barmaid dreamin' up a poem or whatever it is she does, an' the other starin' at her like she just discovered the eighth wonder'a the world."

September, who had jumped at the sound of a feminine Irish brogue more-or-less in her ear, now turned and forced a tight smile. "Ah, shut up and get'cher own drink, _mädchen._ Y'know where the barrels are."

Sticking out her tongue like a five-year-old, a shapely redheaded girl in a slinky brown dress stalked behind the counter, rolling her eyes at a wink from the aged bartender, Mr. O'Leary. She drew a tankard full of what September assumed was her favorite beer, then emerged and sat down at the table that Leah was still blissfully scrubbing. Seeing Mr. O'Leary's critical eye on her, September had the sense to serve a few drinks and rinse a few glasses before joining her friends.

"So, 'tember," the redhead inquired sweetly between sips, "how's business?"

September snorted, a frequent habit with her. "Not half as good as yours, I'd say." She motioned at Leah, who still seemed utterly unaware of anything going on around her. "Heard from that one that your boy was causin' some trouble last night, Story."

Story winced, her long copper eyelashes drooping as she studied the dregs in her tankard. "Aye, I wondered why he left early."

"Mike's still seein' you _every_ night?" September couldn't keep an edge of disgust from her voice.

Story's hazel eyes snapped up angrily. "He's payin'!" she pointed out acidly. "Ain't like I can choose me customers!" But her cheeks had colored, and her hand went to her throat, where it instinctively gripped a tiny gold rose pendant strung on a brown cord.

"Tightwad. Wouldn't even buy a chain," September muttered cynically.

"He couldna afford one! He thought it looked nicer on the cord anyway, an' so do I! D'ye hafta go all sour on me just 'cause there might actually be someone who thinks'a me as more than a...a _toy?"_

Story's eyes were flashing, and the level of this outburst rather surpassed that of polite conversation, causing Leah to start out of her pleasant reverie and drop her rag. September held up her hands in mock surrender.

"Easy there, _mädchen,"_ she soothed, once again using the German word for _girl._ Her midnight-blue eyes sharpened, and though her last sentence was addressed at Story, her eyes wandered to Leah's face as she said it. "I just don't wanna see ya get hurt." With that, she rose, grabbed Story's empty tankard, and marched off to the pump behind the counter to make a show of actually earning her wages.

"Huh." Story blinked stoically. "Wonder what that was about."

"It ain't really you who upset her," Leah replied softly, watching September scour the life out of an innocent pitcher.

"No?"

"No. _I_ did." A slight frown creased Leah's forehead. "I dunno how, though."

Story arched an eyebrow and opened her mouth to inquire further, then thought better of it. Leah had to be one of the strangest girls she had ever met. Sometimes she just knew things, without even knowing how she knew them, and it was best not to question them. She smiled at the innocent concern in the dark-haired child's face.

"Well, don't worry over it, darlin'. September'll get over it. Ye know she don't hold grudges or nothin', even if she ain't the cheeriest lass in the world."

Leah nodded and turned solemnly to face her. "Story?"

"Aye, Leah?"

"Why did you drink water instead of beer today?"

Story jumped up so fast she nearly knocked over her chair, mouth dropping open in amazement. Sure, Leah was rather perceptive, but to have taken notice of that detail when she appeared to be off in her own little world was just ridiculous.

_"That,"_ she announced primly, "is somethin' ye don't need ta know at yer age, lassie." Story often felt entitled to make remarks like this with Leah or September. At sixteen, they were Madame's two youngest employees, while Story had the proud distinguishment of being eighteen.

Leah simply smiled, and Story, relieved by her willingness to dismiss the subject, took her by the arm and headed for the counter. "C'mon, let's help out sour old September an' get some work done. Ye'll be earnin' yer wages, an' I'll actually be makin' meself useful for a change."

Leah nodded demurely, and obediently joined a sullen September at the pump, picking up a dish and rag. She bit back a knowing smile as Story eyed the filthy rag with blatant loathing, clearly struggling to find a way to worm out of the promise she had made seconds before.

"Er...make meself useful...right. You two do the washin', an' I'll...I'll entertain ye! Make the work go faster. How's that sound?"

"I could use some entertainment," Mr. O'Leary growled, on his way to a barrel to draw a drink for a customer.

"Ah, go an' try that on Madame 'erself," Story muttered to his retreating back. "She's near 'bout yer own age." This earned her a giggle from Leah and even a grudging snort from September. "Now!" Story declared, leaning against a wall near the dish-washers and twirling her fiery locks on one finger. "What'll it be t'day?"

"'Connla and the Fairy Maiden'?" Leah suggested hopefully, methodically rinsing a stack of mugs and handing them to September to dry.

"Excellent choice!" And, beaming with pleasure, the Irish girl launched into one of the many Celtic fairy tales she had memorized back in her native country, embellishing it with the usual vivid descriptions and her flair for different voices, easily capturing and holding her audience's attention in the manner that had earned her her nickname.

The first tale was followed by another, then another, and Story followed September and Leah around the bar whenever they were called upon to serve customers. Under her spell, the hours slipped by like sand through a seive. The bar being located deep underground and containing no clock, there was no way to determine the time of day, so it came as a shock to all three girls when a large, robust woman in gaudy attire appeared at the top of the stairs.

"My daughters," she sang out in a teasing, honey-coated voice, "night shift's startin'!"

--------

"What'd ya light that for?" September grumbled to Leah as the trio gingerly made their way up the dark staircase. "Y'know how expensive candles are. Why waste one?"

"Ah, leave the lass alone for once," Story snapped. "Ye know she likes candles."

"I'm sorry," Leah murmured remorsefully. "I didn't think. The moon would've been enough tonight."

September, eyeing the weak pool of light formed by Leah's stub of candle, managed to narrowly avoid tripping over a dead rat. No more was said about waste after that.

When they had navigated their way to the top of the stairs, Story tugged the door open without a second thought. Immediately, they were hit by a powerful blast of cigar smoke; clouds of it billowed into the stairwell. September and Story casually stepped up into Madame's lair, but both instantly spun around when they heard Leah.

The small girl had collapsed on the threshold between the staircase and the room it led into. Her body shook violently as cough after cough tore its way through her throat, each one sounding harsher and more painful than the one before. The other two girls exchanged panicked looks and dropped to their knees on either side of her, fanning furiously with their skirts and attempting to shield her from the smoke. Then Madame descended upon them, swishing her familiar hat of mercy through the air, and replacing the wreak of smoke with that of strong, cheap floral perfume.

"Not _again!_ Have my daughters forgotten yet _again_ about dear Leah's reaction to the smoke?"

"Aye," Story sighed as Leah let out a few last halfhearted coughs. "I hardly ever see her in here, so I'm prone to forgettin'."

"I always think she'll get over it," September confessed rather sheepishly. "I mean, a lotta times she's just fine, and...she's been here two years, after all, and ain't no one else ever choked on the stuff like she does. I swear it gets worse every time she does it. You okay, hon?" She reverted to the gentle voice that she never used with anyone but Leah, and rarely even with her.

Leah nodded, rising slowly to her feet and heading alongside the others for the door that led outside, with a protective Madame hovering around her and fanning her path clear of smoke. In one hand she still cupped her candle, which had luckily neither gone out nor burned her hand during her brief crisis.

Once the girls had been shooed out into the unusually clean night air and Madame had shut the door behind them, September turned to Leah.

"Sure you're all right?"

Leah nodded again.

"You want me to sell on a corner closer to yours tonight?" she asked briskly. "Don't want any'a the guys ya warned off last night to bother ya." She aimed a glare at Story at these words, which Story ignored; she could see her own corner from here, and whatever devilry his friends might be up to, her Mike was already waiting there to secure an all-night alibi.

In response to September's offer, Leah shook her head and spoke timidly. "Thanks, 'tember, but I...I was kinda thinkin' of startin' work a little late tonight. There's, uh...somewhere I kinda wanted to go first."

September's heart plunged to her toes at this, and Story, who had been halfway to her corner, paused out of curiosity.

"Someplace you wanna go alone?" September asked coldly.

Leah gazed at her sadly, as if analyzing her face and tone of voice with so little effort that she didn't even realize she was doing it. "I...yeah, I mean...well, there's this great place to look at the stars, the roof of this one buildin', and the sky prob'ly won't be this clear again for a while."

Because this request sounded so very much like Leah, and because the girl had never told a lie in her life, September knew it must be true. But there was obviously more to it than that, and she had a terrible, gut-wrenching suspicion that she knew what more there was.

"Well, I can't stop ya, _mädchen_...but might'cha tell me where this place is?"  
  
The small, dark figure smiled so radiantly and sweetly that September felt her anger start to melt into something quite different, even after she heard Leah's simple answer.

"Duane Street."


	4. Chapter Three: Spook's Journey

Author's Note: Hey, my beloved ones, I practically knocked myself out writing this chapter. ;-) So if you have ever indulged, or ever intend to indulge, this particular **HUGE **review whore, pleeease do so now. puppy eyes

Warning: This chapter contains a bit more language than I'm prone to using. Which still isn't especially bad, but I just thought I'd warn you.

**Quick Shout Outs:**

Sorry so quick :-( but I really want to get this posted. My love and heartfelt thanks to...

Mis Chicas of the NML:

EIRE

LET

TREE

PUCK

SEAGULL

TROLLEY

EVE

MAVERICK

AIR

L'L ITALY

HALF PINT

BLACKJACK

Anyone Else Who's Reviewed, Who I May Have Cruelly Forgotten :'-( (huggles)

And, Mis Chicas of MY EVER-FAITHFUL STALKER, STORMSHADOW :-)

**Chapter Three: Spook's Journey**

"Full House. Read 'em and weep."

Skittery groaned slightly at yet another victory for the notorious gambler, not only because Racetrack was robbing all the other newsboys of every cent they owned, but because he was playing with a tiny princess leaning her head on his shoulder and curiously examining his cards.

The poker tournament was in full swing. Newsies had poured in from every borough, intent on throwing away their money, showing off the latest females to decorate their arms, and engaging in their ceaseless gossip about the strike. It had been a little over a month since that small victory, and while even Skittery hadn't objected to a bit of celebration when the price of the papers had been lowered, he felt that the way they dragged the issue on was simply ridiculous.

"Skitts? You figg'rin' out the odds or somethin'?" Tumbler asked tentatively.

Shaking his head, Skittery gratefully turned back to the private poker game that he and his young friend were playing. They were using Kloppman's old set of wooden chips, and did not intend to exchange them for coins; Skittery, as usual, refused to part with his precious earnings, and Tumbler, though mildly wealthy for once from a day of selling, wanted to save up for some toy or another that he'd glimpsed in a shop window.

"I'll take three," Skittery finally mumbled, handing Tumbler three of his cards to exchange. He didn't even know why he was bothering with this poker business, except that there was absolutely nothing better to do. Normally, he would be counting money or reading a book at this time of night, or even exchanging grudging conversation with Bumlets or Specs, two of the newsies with whom he was friendliest. But the noise and clouds of smoke were always distracting enough, and on this night, with the bunkroom packed to bursting, he felt light-headed from the smoke and could barely hear himself think.

A sudden stir near the bunkroom door caused both Skittery and Tumbler to sit up on Tumbler's bunk, where they had been sprawled casually with the cards between them, and glance in that direction. The cause was instantly evident: a golden-haired, blue-eyed boy, rather on the small side, stood framed in the doorway, a silver key glinting on a chain around his neck. His belt, as always, held a wooden slingshot and his legendary gold-topped cane. While hats were swept off, over-enthusiastic greetings were called, and a nervous path was quickly cleared across the room, Skittery suppressed a snicker.

_Brooklyn...fashionably late, of course._

Spot Conlon sauntered down his royal path, carrying, it was plain to Skittery, an ego approximately ten times his size. Behind him, keeping a respectful distance, trailed a dozen or so of his loyal subjects, most of whom were large and muscular and almost as good-looking as their king. Not one boy, except for Skittery and the oblivious Tumbler, failed to gulp slightly as this posse passed him by; not one girl failed to blush and giggle hopefully. Not one girl, Skittery noticed offhandly, except for Tanya, whose head never left its position on Racetrack's shoulder, and whose jade eyes observed the procession with no more than a cool, detached interest.

Once Brooklyn had settled into the tournament, things started to get mildly interesting. Not one of the Brooklyn boys had brought a girl with him, and it quickly became clear that this was because they intended on flirting shamelessly with everyone else's girls. Even Skittery had to take a break from his game with Tumbler to witness _this_ well-known preamble to violence. Spot himself bestowed so much flattery on an utterly unaffected Tanya that Race pointed out, without a trace of his usual cheerful wit, that there were a lot of other attractive girls around, quite a few of whom were on the other side of the room.

Skittery actually found himself almost hoping that this would lead to a fight, just to break the dreadful monotony of the night. But Spot only smirked and stalked off to chat with a pair of short Italian girls, whose laughter, feisty arguing, and animated conversation had brightened up the room since early evening. Blackjack and Half Pint hadn't come with boys; they always showed up on their own, and always seemed to be bent on nothing more ominous than having fun.

For a while, Skittery observed almost wistfully, as if he were no more than a statue or a painting in a room full of real people. He watched Spot and Blackjack exchange a rather public embrace; she must have been his latest flame. They then launched themselves cheerfully into the storm of poker and craps, in which Blackjack rivaled even Racetrack's considerable skills. Half Pint seemed to grow bored with the whole ordeal and, followed by Skittery's critical eye, pulled Snitch aside. The two of them slipped into a corner and exchanged a few whispered words. Both proceeded to vanish from the bunkroom with the silent, graceful subtlty of a pair of cats on the prowl. Skittery, recalling the fact that they shared a former occupation, hoped the wealthy of Manhattan were travelling light that night.

"Uh, Skitt? You gonna be people-watchin' all night, or maybe thinkin'a makin' a bet?"

Skittery jumped and turned guiltily back to his poker opponent. Sarcasm wasn't at all like Tumbler, and Skittery feared that he might be rubbing off on the younger boy.

"Sorry," he muttered hastily. "I'll bet, um..."

But he was saved the trouble of thinking of a sum by the sudden and dramatic entrance of four small boys at the bunkroom door, swinging it open with an enthusiasm that threatened to throw it off its hinges.

"Tumbler! Hey, Tumbler!" the ringleader, Snipeshooter, hollered jovially, removing a cigar from his mouth in order to speak. Les, Boots, and Slider, meanwhile, bounced around him like a pack of hyperactive puppies.

"Yeah?" Tumbler called, looking up with interest. The brat pack had been banished from the bunkroom during the tournament because of their typical unruly behavior, which threatened to disrupt the games and scare off the girls. Only Tumbler, as the quietest, had been allowed to remain. Angry and mutinous, the rugrats had taken to the streets to get up to God knew what.

"C'mon outside with us," Snipeshooter ordered, beckoning frantically and ignoring the warning looks the older newsies were shooting at him and his cronies. "We's got a _swell_ idea, s'gonna be so much fun, ya don't wanna miss it—"

The maniacal gleam in his eye made Skittery shudder; it reminded him of the time the little kids had set the warehouse down the street on fire, or the unforgettable night when they'd caught a rich boy who had insulted them, tied him up behind the lodging house, and told him ghost stories until his screams woke Kloppman, who had put an end to it.

Tumbler gazed wistfully at his friends, clearly yearning to be a part of whatever felony they had planned. Then he turned to his hero, hesitation in his eyes.

"Go on," Skittery told him quickly, trying for a grin. "They prob'ly won't be able to cause much trouble without you."

Tumbler flashed him a lightning smile and bounced off the bed, gleefully joining his comrades. The five of them took off across the lobby without a backward glance, letting the door slam behind them.

"I didn't do it," Jack and Specs hurriedly chorused.

"Nooo responsibility whatsoever," Crutchy added firmly.

Their consciences clear, the three newsboys most frequently in charge of the youngsters returned to their previous occupations, Jack and Specs playing poker while Crutchy served as spectator and commentator, trying to cheer on everyone and console the losers.

Skittery, however, had no previous occupation to return to. His kindred spirit had abandoned him, and why shouldn't he? What ten-year-old in his right mind would want to hang out with someone boring and sullen who avoided all the action?

Tanya, he realized, was laughing after losing her seventh hand of poker. She had joined the game seven hands before, systematically sustained seven miserable losses, and laughed harder after each one. "I'll have to play two dozen perfect Mozarts to earn that all back," she moaned.

Race, laughing rather wickedly at his girl's dilemma, glanced over at the bunk Skittery was still glumly occupying. "Hey, Skitt, c'mon, pull up a chair. You can play on credit if you want. Or play with chips and don't cash 'em in, like you was doin' with Tumbler. Ya can't just lie there all night like a bump on a log."

"We'd all love to have you join us," Tanya agreed sweetly, treating Skittery to a slightly disturbing wink that caused Race to smack her playfully with his cap.

Skittery had had enough. This was the umpteenth time he'd been invited to join the tournament that night. The others simply _could not_ take a hint. Just like at Medda's, just like in the street while he was selling, just like almost every other place and time during Skittery's career as a newsie, he felt surrounded, stifled, and up to his neck in irritation. It was as if he was drowning in a sea of people and noise and laughter, and, floundering helplessly, he grasped at the only buoy he could think of that might keep him afloat: the window.

Scrambling down off the bunk, sidestepping, tripping, and wading his way through a roaring human obstacle course, Skittery finally staggered over to his only possible salvation. As with the group of lovesick boys by the alley, no one was paying him the slightest bit of attention except Tanya, who, impossible though it seemed, appeared to have one eye on her cards while the other followed Skittery's every move. He forced himself to shrug this off...Tanya, apparently, saw _everything_...and shoved the window open. Sticking his head out, he allowed himself one blissful gulp of fresh air, then scrambled out onto the roof and slammed the window shut behind him.

_Free!_

That was the first word to flash through his mind. He lay on his back, hands folded under his head, eyes closed, as a nippy autumn breeze chilled his face, scattered brown locks of hair across his forehead, ruffled his trademark pink shirt, and refreshed him. He touched the shirt lightly and smiled. It had used to be white, before it was accidentally washed in the same tub as Jake's red vest. The others found it rather hilarious, in contrast to Skittery's decidedly _un_pink disposition.

"Why are your eyes closed?"

Skittery sat up so quickly and started so violently that he nearly went careening clear off the edge of the roof.

_"What the—who the—"_

His tongue froze in mid-sentence. There, lounging on the roof, clearly silhouetted in the moonlight, was the girl who had saved his life and haunted his dreams the previous night.

He didn't know how he recognized her right away, how he could be so certain. He had scarcely even seen her that night, it had been so dark; if anyone had asked him to describe her face, or her clothes, or even tell the color of her hair, he would have been unable to. But somehow he had no doubt that this small, moon-white girl, clad in a black dress, face framed in baby-soft raven locks, was that very phantom. Maybe he knew because he found himself looking straight into the brown eyes that had been nearly all he could remember of the encounter.

"What—what the—what are _you_ doin' here?" he demanded breathlessly, scrambling back toward the window as if escaping some horrific demon.

"Lookin' at the stars." The wind carried her gentle voice to his ears like a sacred melody that needed to be fanned to its destination by the wings of angels. Skittery, feeling a familiar tightening in his stomach, fumbled with the window latch, her words echoing in his mind.

"Lookin' at the—" He finally got the catch open, and shot a parting glare at the girl. "Well, go look at 'em someplace else!" he ordered venomously. "There ain't any customers for you 'round here, so whatever you mighta thought, you can go find business back on your regular street!"

"You dropped somethin'."

Skittery, who had been about to open the window, paused. He twisted his head suspiciously to face her.

"Huh?"

"You dropped this," the girl informed him softly, and held something out toward him. He gaped at the object in her hand: a small square photograph, crumpled viciously into a tight wad.

"When I startled you and you jumped," she explained matter-of-factly. "It fell outta your pocket."

White-faced, Skittery snatched it back from her and stared at it for a moment. When he raised his eyes again, they had softened very slightly.

"Look," he said gruffly, "thanks for what you did last night, for me'n Tumbler. I dunno why ya did it, but thanks. Ya happy?"

"I'm happy," the girl assured him conversationally, her face lighting up with a smile that could melt a heart of stone. "I love to look at the stars. You ain't looked at them. Your eyes were closed. Look how clear the night is."

She pointed heavenward, her slender white index finger like some sort of mystic scepter; and Skittery, automatically and against his will, found his eyes following her gesture. What he saw when he did almost knocked him off the roof again. The sky, making a blacker background than Skittery had ever seen before, hosted so many blazing stars that he unconsciously shaded his eyes against the celestial field of pulsing white light.

"I'm glad you saw 'em," his companion murmured happily. "If I hadn't come, you might never have seen the stars. This's the best place in the whole borough to see them, I think. I've come here before. Don't you live here? Haven't you ever come out here to see the stars?"

As she spoke, a strange feeling came over Skittery. It seemed to him that she was telling the truth. That she _had_ come here to star-gaze, had been here before for the same purpose, and had never entertained any notion of luring in customers in this part of town. She had known he lived here, perhaps...somehow he felt she _had_ known that...but she hadn't known he would come out and find her. She was glad he had.

_And how the hell do I know all that?_

Snapping out of his star-induced reverie, Skittery spun around and gave the windowframe an extremely determined tug.

It didn't budge.

Furious at this obstinance in the face of his desperation, he hauled even harder. No luck. It was stuck. Plainly, simply, and very firmly stuck.

He could bang on it, he realized, and alert someone inside to his predicament, someone who would surely be able to open it for him. But then he glanced in alarm at the slim white shape behind him. Anyone who came to the window might see _her,_ and _then_ what would they assume? The other newsies might think Skittery was gloomy, morbid, bad-tempered, a pessimist, but he would _not_ tolerate being seen as a boy who hung out with whores on the roof at night.

"Y'know what?" he snapped, whirling on the girl. Then he saw her pale face in the moonlight, the sheen of her black hair, her soft brown eyes and the innocent sincerity of her smile, and directed his gaze at some vague point over her left shoulder instead. "You're gonna get outta here. _Now._ Get back to that 'Madame' woman, or wherever the hell ya came from, ya hear?"

He expected this outburst to have _some_ negative effect on the girl. He hadn't exactly intended for her to burst into tears, but he had hoped for at least a flushed face, widened eyes, a gasp…somesmall acknowledgment of shock, of anger, of realization at what a righteous and _clean_ person she was dealing with.

Instead, the girl's smile faded. That was all. It wasn't replaced by a frown; her face remained smooth and luminous, and the smile merely faded like a ghost, replaced by an amiable nod.

"All right," she agreed, without a trace of resentment in her voice. Indeed, she merely sounded rather thoughtful, as if considering his words.

Yet still she did not move from her position, sitting cross-legged several feet away from Skittery, gazing steadily at him until his blood boiled.

"I said, _get away,"_ he reminded her through clenched teeth.

The girl nodded again, and then in a flash, her smile returned, as if a brilliant idea had suddenly occurred to her, something that solved all the problems in the world. Her next words nearly gave Skittery a heart attack.

"Would you like to come with me?"

He had actually half-launched himself at her before he remembered what she was and recoiled, flushed and shaking. "Would...would..._would I WHAT?" _he finally managed, at such a volume that it was a miracle it was so loud inside the bunkroom, or half the newsies of the city would have heard him.

His tone didn't faze the girl in the slightest. "Would you like to come with me?" she repeated brightly, as if she thought he really hadn't heard the question and wanted it repeated. Then the implication of this statement seemed to register with her, and she cocked her head, smiling in relief at the simple misunderstanding. "Not like a _customer_ does," she corrected patiently. "I want to show you somethin'."

If this statement had come from the mouth of any other person of her profession, Skittery would have seen several dozen twisted, hideous meanings in it. But there was something about the way she looked and acted and spoke...that pure, simple innocence that so strongly defied what he knew her to be...that made it clear that whatever she wanted to show him, it was nothing indecent.

Not that this made any difference.

"You..." He was breathing heavily now, amazed, somewhere in the back of his mind, that a little brown-eyed girl could get him so upset. "You...want me to...you think I would..._no, _I won't come with ya!"

"Why not?" she inquired curiously.

"Why..." He was doing it again, echoing her words. Even that meaningless observation fueled his mounting anger. _"Because you're a goddamn dirty whore!"_

Skittery was not particularly prone to strong language or harsh insults; certainly not to cruelty. But he had a temper, and it had just erupted like a volcano. The words hung in the air, seeming to bounce and echo off of every available surface surrounding the roof, repeating dozens upon dozens of times in Skittery's mind, like ripples marking the spot where a stone had sunk in a pool. It was Skittery's mouth that those ripples were surrounding...the words were his, he was responsible for them, and there was no taking them back, any more than he could take back the similar words he had shouted two years before.

This time, however, the reaction he received was vastly different.

"Come with me," the recipient of that terrible sentence requested calmly, but with an odd undercurrent in her voice, rather like a sheet of steel; not cold, not angry, but strong and confident. "I've shown you the stars," she continued. "Now I want to show you what's under them."

Dumbfounded, Skittery looked on silently, with no intention of moving a muscle, as a nimble leap carried her to the top of the ladder that led down past the fire escape to the ground. One swift, easy swing and she had mounted that ladder, and then, before disappearing down the rungs, she held up an object pinched between her thumb and index finger. The moonlight illuminated it for only a split second before she had vanished.

Skittery's jaw dropped so hard it nearly crumbled. The object was a crumpled-up photograph.

_She never touched me! She never brushed my pocket! She was never anywhere **near** me! She's worse than Snitch and Half Pint put together!_

"You—" Hurling curses and not caring if the world heard, Skittery hurled himself at the ladder, scrambled down as fast as he could, and leapt rather jarringly to the ground. When he turned to give chase, however, he was surprised to see the girl standing several feet away, actually waiting for him. In one hand she still clutched his picture; in the other, a stub of candle with a wildly flickering flame.

"Where'd you get that?" Skittery demanded, bewildered, even as he jumped at her. She dodged easily and continued to back up, dancing from side to side to avoid his grasp, though there was no sign of mischief or mockery in her face.

"Brought it with me," she explained. "I left it under there so it wouldn't blow out on the roof." She pointed to a hedge near the lodging house, which was growing steadily smaller as their absurd dance of attempted capture and swift evasion carried them down Duane Street.

"You—have—no—right—" He feinted to the left, then pounced to the right, only to clutch at air; her candle flame was gleaming a solid four feet ahead of him.

_She can't possibly be that fast! She must just be...more agile, or somethin'. And now we're off Duane...gettin' closer to **her** neighborhood..._

Recalling his last experience in that area, Skittery shuddered. If she went through an alley, there was no way he was following her.

_But she has..._

_What the hell do you **care** about what she has? You crumpled it up into a ball yourself, just last night! You've kept it under your pillow without lookin' at it for three years straight! So why chase some prostitute halfway across the borough in the dark to get it back?_

He didn't know why, but he had lost count of the blocks they had travelled, and he was still pursuing her, still keeping his eyes locked on her flame. A slight breeze stirred it, and it quivered with even more energy, making patterns of firelight and shadow across the wax-like face framed in its light. Twin orange pinpoints reflected eerily in those velvet eyes.

Why was she doing this? Where was she trying to lead him? She _had_ to have gotten it through her head now that she wasn't going to make a client out of him. He had made _that_ crystal-clear. Anyway, she had to have dozens of more-than-willing clients back in that..._place..._where their paths had crossed before. Why go after _him?_

His mind still reeling with all these questions, Skittery almost didn't notice when the flame he was following turned a corner. Stopping short, he quickly turned as well. But when he did, he was greeted with an empty, trash-strewn street, a vast sky full of stars, and silence.

The minx had disappeared on him again!

_"You—" _He was all set to curse her for the third or fourth time that night when a familiar voice spoke up, seemingly out of thin air.

"I'm here."

Feeling stupid and annoyed, Skittery turned in a full circle, glancing around wildly. "You're _where?" _he growled, aware of how pointless the query was, but unable to think of anything else to try.

"That doesn't matter," the voice answered with a note of laughter. But when it spoke again, it was suddenly solemn. Solemn, he mused, and vitally earnest.

"Look inside."

"What?"

"Look inside," came the ever-patient repetition. "The first house on the left."

Skittery heaved an exasperated sigh. His nerves had been worn down to nothing already. But if she wanted to play games, and if he played along, maybe she would give him his picture back and leave him alone. Obediently, he approached the first house on his left.

It was not so much a house, he discovered, as a shack. _Hovel_ might have been an appropriate term. It was a tiny, sunken, one-room structure, thrown together sloppily from rotting boards and a cracked, sagging tin roof. The door was just a board on rusted hinges, one of which was hanging loose, and the windows were no more than crudely-cut holes partially covered by tattered rags. Sighing and feeling suddenly self-conscious, Skittery discreetly pushed one of these makeshift curtains aside and peered into the shack.

What he saw left him speechless.

The single room held no furniture. The shack had no floor; it was merely set on hard-packed dirt, with a few ratty blankets and garments strewn here and there. In the center of the room sat a small iron pot with a few sticks and logs piled in it, surrounded by miniscule, glistening mounds of coal. The fire that sputtered weakly inside the pot, its smoke drifting up through a gap in the roof, wasn't large enough to heat a mouse hole. Yet huddled around it were no fewer than three people.

A frail little woman, hunched over a bundle cradled in her arms, wore no more than a scant grey dress with a scooped neckline and badly torn skirt. Long, greasy strings of dirty-blonde hair hung around her lined face, and the firelight revealed that they were deeply streaked with grey. Nestled close on either side of her were two children, a boy and a girl, each maybe three or four years old. They were pressed so close to their mother that all Skittery could make out was that their forms were as thin as toothpicks, and their complexions as pale as that of his mysterious guide.

"What did you cook today, Mama?" the little girl asked, in a hoarse whisper that just barely reached Skittery's ears.

"Oh, so many things, darlin'." The mother absently stroked her daughter's hair. "Pastries...cakes...apple pie, all crisp and golden-brown, with ripe, sweet red apples fresh-picked this season..." Her eyes closed wearily, as if she was picturing all those delicacies.

"Did the people like your food, Ma?" the little boy chipped in sleepily, resting his head against her arm.

"Of course, Sam, honey...they loved it," the mother murmured without opening her eyes. "Everyone wanted second helpin's. They said those apples tasted like they was straight out of heaven. And the boss said if I make a pie that good tomorrow, maybe he'll let me bring some home for you and Lily..."

Skittery had seen enough. He let the curtain fall silently back into place and stumbled several steps away from the window, then turned to find a gleaming candle flame mere inches from his face.

"Who..." he murmured helplessly, his voice as hoarse as little Lily's.

"That's Mary and her kids," the candle-bearer explained.

"Mary and..." There he went _again!_ He struggled fiercely to pull himself together. "She...she ain't a cook, is she?" he demanded shakily.

The girl shook her head, ebony locks swishing past her ears. "She's a whore."

It was the first time he had heard her say that word. Every time in his life that Skittery had heard the single syllable uttered, no matter by whom, it had sounded as ugly as its meaning. But now it was effortlessly transformed, imbued with the same tender and innocent light that seemed to accompany any word this girl spoke.

"She lies to 'em..."

"Do you think," his guide asked pointedly, "that she should tell 'em the truth?"

"But she promised 'em pie and everythin'..."

"They won't really expect it. But it'll help 'em dream."

"But...where do the kids go when she...works? What do they do in winter?"

"The kids stay home. Or with a friend of Mary's. Or play in the streets. Last winter, they wasn't so bad off. They had a better place. This year, they'll do what they can...or nothin'."

It was amazing, Skittery thought, that even now, even when she was disclosing such dark, heart-rending truths, her voice held not a single shred of bitterness, cynicism, anger. There was sorrow, yes, and there was _passion,_ but it wasn't as if she was throwing all this in his face, saying, "This shows how wrong and terrible you are." She spoke so gently and earnestly that it was more as if she was saying, "This is a lesson you need to learn, and I'm here to help you."

Suddenly a leftover burst of anger flared in Skittery. "You had no right to do that," he hissed, "makin' me spy on those people—"

"People?" she echoed.

For just a brief moment there, Skittery thought she might be challenging him in some way. Then she nodded quickly, eyes flooding with remorse. "You're right," she admitted ruefully. "Spyin's a real bad habit'a mine. I just watch and listen to people all the time, without even thinkin' about it. September's told me off for it too, but I can never seem to remember." She shook her head, as if to chastise herself, then looked up at him again. "Could I ask _you_ somethin'?"

Skittery eyed her warily. "I guess."

"How old do you think she is?"

Skittery gaped at her. "Who, the wh-...uh, Mary?"

She nodded. Skittery shrugged.

"I dunno...thirty-, forty-somethin'. Why?"

She glanced at the shifting shadows her candle made on the street. "She's barely twenty."

Skittery gasped, taken aback. Desperately, he struggled to grasp at his old views, his previous ideas about this sort of situation.

"Well, why don't she get a job? Why ain't she a cook, like she tells 'er kids? Or she could work in a fact'ry or somethin'—"

"D'you know any fact'ry or restaurant that'd hire her?"

Skittery pictured the woman in his mind: frail, bent, weak and delicate, unhealthy. He conjured up the image of her pallid skin and straggly, greying hair. Reluctantly, he shook his head, mind still racing.

"But she could do somethin' else...work in a bar, maybe, even sell papes, I've seen a couple newsgirls..."

"It wouldn't make enough," the little phantom explained. "Newsgirls don't make nearly as much as boys. A lotta people don't approve of girls sellin' papes, so they won't buy from 'em. _I _work in a bar, and it ain't enough for one. Mary needs to make enough for four."

_Four?_ Then Skittery remembered the bundle in her arms. An infant? Why wasn't it crying? Surely it must be hungry. He tried to imagine a creature so hungry, so empty and weak, that it couldn't even make a sound.

"There's a girl who takes baby Elizabeth while Mary's at work," his companion explained, as if reading his thoughts. "But no one around here has enough to eat."

Skittery opened his mouth, a hundred more questions rising to his lips. But before he could ask even one, his guide had turned and, without warning, sprinted off down the street again, her candle bobbing merrily in her outstretched hand.

"Hey!" Skittery shouted, suddenly remembering how this whole chase had begun. "You still have my—"

But she had turned another corner, and he had no choice but to dash after her.

Unfortunately, when he reached the corner she had turned, Skittery's mouth went dry. It led through a brick alley, onto a street which he could now see much more clearly than ever before, since the one other time he had visited it, it had been obscured by fog.

"You there?" he called apprehensively, the last syllable echoing off the crumbling bricks.

"Yeah," came the prompt response, and Skittery, wondering with cold dread if he was walking straight into some sort of trap, did exactly what he had previously sworn not to do under any circumstances: he trotted through the alley.

The street, he discovered upon entering it, really was located in a downright awful neighborhood, but did not appear _quite_ so ominous as it had in the fog. The lack of weapon-wielding thugs helped, too. The only people he saw, besides his guide, were a red-haired young woman and a tall, broad-shouldered young man. They stood on the corner at the other end of the street, entwined in each other's arms, their lips appearing fused together.

His quarry was witnessing the same scene. She sighed slightly.

"Story don't admit it, exactly, but she loves Mike. She thinks he loves her."

Skittery, who was becoming rather used to random statements from this girl, responded without thinking. "Well, does he?"

Brown eyes swung around to face him in surprise. "How could anyone love a whore?"

Skittery's head whirled. Those were most _definitely_ not her words. They were _his_ words! And she had just _pulled them out of his head!_

"Who _are_ you?" he heard himself whisper.

The girl's smile returned then, blooming across her face in the candlelight, and Skittery was startled to find that he was deeply relieved to see it. "Leah Bailey,"

she answered simply.

"Leah..." He still couldn't seem to get over the habit of repeating her, but this time his tone was not one of disgust or incredulity, but of awe, almost reverence. "Leah Bailey...all right...but who _are_ you?"

"I'm a whore," she answered matter-of-factly. When he shook his head, she continued, seeming determined to find a reply that satisfied him. "I'm a star-gazer...a poet...a painter, sometimes, but I'm not very good...a barmaid, a friend, an orphan, a sister..."

"A what?"

This last word startled Skittery, but that was nothing compared to what it did to Leah. Her hand slipped, and her candle plunged to the ground, going out in an instant, so that she was no more than a faceless shadow again, like the first night he had seen her.

"...once," she finished in a flat and distant tone that Skittery hadn't heard her use before. "A sister _once."_

He was still staring at her, and she puckered her lips, as if disappointed that she still hadn't come up with the proper label for herself. Then her face brightened.

"Last night," she reminded him, "your friend, the little boy, he said I was a…a spook?"

She laughed, and Skittery was reminded of the laughter he had heard in the doorway after their rescuer...Leah...had disappeared. It sent his heart reeling and soaring all over the place, that laugh.

"Yeah...I forgot about that. Tumbler's a pretty creative kid," Skittery informed her, grinning. His grin dissolved as he became thoughtful. "Y'know, I think that's it. That's what you _must_ be. You appear and disappear in thin air, you read minds, you teleport things out of people's pockets—"

"None of the above," Leah denied, eyes twinkling. "But I'll be a spook if you want me to."

"All right," Skittery consented faintly. "Spook it is."

They regarded each other for a while, there beneath the round ivory-fire moon, and the stars that glittered so brightly one almost expected them to burst into chords of music. In the darkness, and without the benefit of Spook's candle, details were concealed...but everything about her, from her diminutive height to her snow-white face, from her short black hair to her beautiful brown eyes, from her radiant smile to her voice and laugh that triggered such strong feelings within him, seemed to break over Skittery again and again, fresh and new each time, like waves breaking on the sand.

At last, he felt his eyes drifting away from her. Their attention had been caught by something else, something along the side of the street, located just outside the alley and before the first building. Something he had not previously noticed, on either of his journeys to this street.

"Spook," he murmured, testing the new name on his tongue, "what are those?"

Spook followed his gaze, then padded respectfully over to the objects of his curiosity. He followed mutely. Together, they stood and looked down at a neat row of rough wooden crosses, protruding from a layer of soft dirt that would soon be frozen solid.

"They're in memory," Spook explained, "of those of Madame's 'daughters' who've died, over the years. She puts 'em up 'erself, whenever she loses a girl…to sickness, hunger, cold...murder. See the names?"

Peering more closely, Skittery realized that a first name was painstakingly carved into each cross.

_Alexandra. Bethany. Lissette. Maria._

While Spook looked on, Skittery stepped forward and silently read the name on every single cross. When he stepped back, his face wore a look of profound relief.

Spook was pointing at the base of one of the crosses.

"Look at that," she commanded.

Skittery's eyes followed her gesture, and he saw that his shoe had left a single print in the moist patch of earth. He turned blankly to Spook, who uttered two cryptic sentences in a chilling pitch, like an oracle delivering a prophecy.

"Before you scorn the dirt beneath your feet, remember that it records your footprints. And when you're gone, it will remember the path you took in life."

A shiver ran down Skittery's spine, and he nodded. They took another minute or so to pay their silent respects to the lost ladies of the night.

"September says they're the lucky ones," Spook told him quietly. "I don't know if she's right." She turned to him. "What do you think?"

Without answering, Skittery reached out a hand to Spook. Understanding, she placed into it the wadded-up photograph that had been the catalyst to all the night's events. Wordlessly, Skittery unrolled the ball, smoothing the little square out in the palm of his hand. He took a deep breath, and his eyes fell upon it for the first time in three years.

A pretty, brown-haired fourteen-year-old girl smiled up at him. In seconds, her face blurred before his eyes.

He wasn't aware of sinking to his knees. He _was_ dimly aware of flipping the picture over in his hand, so that tears splashed onto it and caused the message written there in neat script to run slightly, though it remained legible:

_Mit Liebe, Ihre Schwester, Charlotta._

"I'm sorry," he choked out between sobs, cradling the picture in both hands and shaking his head furiously, as if to deny that an event now vivid in his memory had ever occurred. "Oh, God, I'm so sorry."

Beside him, he heard Spook kneel down as well. When he peered at her through his tears, he was startled to find that mixed with the deep sympathy in her face was another emotion equally as strong: unmistakable shock.

"Hey," she whispered, "could I...I don't even know your name," she realized aloud with a brief flash of her wondrous smile.

"Sk-Skittery," he managed to gasp.

"Skittery…could I…see the picture, please? I promise I'll give it back," she added.

He handed it to her. Carefully, she turned it over, and stared at his sister's face for long, long seconds.

Finally, she placed the treasure in his hand again, rose, and touched his arm. Instinctively, he jerked away, the barest flash returning of the opinions he had held about her kind before that night. She withdrew her hand, and spoke.

"It isn't a _picture_ you need to apologize to," she told him, not sternly, but with the utmost tenderness.

And with that, she slipped away from him, seeming to float down the street and meld with the shadows, materializing again before the door of one of the many dingy buildings. It opened and closed noiselessly, leaving just enough time in between for her to vanish inside.

Skittery shoved the photograph back into his pocket and staggered to his feet, bowing his head momentarily before the crosses. Then his feet slowly carried him toward the alley, as he glanced back several dozen times at the door that had swallowed his wise, innocent, brown-eyed spook.

* * *

"Where have you been _this_ time?" Jack faced Skittery with the air of a father lecturing a son who had become a hopeless delinquent. "Is vanishin' some new habit a'yours or somethin'? Run into any thugs this time?"

Skittery shook his head wearily, trying to keep pace with Jack's energetic strides; the Manhattan leader had met him at the corner of Duane Street, apparently on his way to look for him.

"What'd I miss?" he asked, feeling he was expected to speak.

"What'd you _miss?"_ Jack rolled his eyes. "Well, let's see. The tournament's over, everyone's gone except Tanya, the rugrats ran down the street naked drummin' on water pails—"

"I'm kinda glad I missed that," Skittery declared, wincing. Jack grinned in spite of himself.

"Yeah, I don't blame ya. Well, Tumbler held out on that atrocity, I think he was lookin' for you." Jack probably would have said more, but it was then that they mounted the steps of the lodging house, and the lamp in the window provided enough light for him to get a better view of Skittery's face. He did a double-take.

"God, Skitt, you a'right? Ya look like you've seen a ghost!"

Lifting a hand to his own pale cheek, Skittery nodded grimly.

"Plenty...plenty of 'em. Quite a few. And a spook...can't forget the spook."

Jack regarded him with concern. "Uh, you feelin' a'right, Skitt? I think you better get to bed."

He pushed open the lodging-house door, leading Skittery into the lobby. They were greeted with the scene of Racetrack and Tanya joined in a soft, shy kiss.

The two quickly parted, both scarlet-faced. Race cleared his throat hastily.

"Uh, heya Cowboy, Skitt. Didn't know you'd be back so soon."

Tanya, however, was making a quick recovery from her embarassment. She had caught sight of Skittery's pale visage, and her eyes locked onto it eagerly, clearly intrigued. Skittery wasn't in the mood.

"Will you stop watchin' people all the time?" he snapped at the jewel as he and Jack proceeded into the bunkroom.

She must have ignored him, however, for he felt her eyes continue to follow him until the door snapped shut. The last thing he heard from the lobby was her honey-and-ginger voice: "Race, would you walk me home?"

Kloppman had turned the lights out, and most of the newsies were already sound asleep, blissfully unaware of the huge shambles of cards, dice, and cigar stubs that surrounded them: a disaster which their landlord would surely force them to clean up the next day. Ignoring the mess, Skittery watched Jack climb up into his bunk and fall back onto his pillow, already starting to snore. Then he quietly slipped into his own bunk, casting off his shirt and suspenders and closing his eyes, so that he could see her black hair in the moonlight.

Instead, however, he saw the row of wooden crosses, and the face on the photograph in his pocket.

"Skitt?" called a young, sleep-deprived voice from several bunks away. "You back?"

"Yeah, Tumbler, I'm back," Skittery confirmed.

"Have an interestin' walk?"

The question had barely left the little newsboy's mouth before his light snores joined those of his many roommates. Skittery rolled over, drew the picture out of his pocket, and tenderly slipped it under his pillow again.

"Kid," he whispered into the deaf darkness of the bunkroom, "you have no idea."


	5. Chapter Four: Night Life and Puzzle Piec...

**A/N: **For the promised two chapters of Bittersweet, I could make a cute excuse, like my dog ate them...but then, I don't have a dog, so I may as well give the horrifically un-cute and true excuse...my computer ate them. Or, technically, my computer broke. It crashed. It died. It devoured my writing like an evil, evil fire. So now I'm working on a very pathetic, molasses-slow, virus-ridden, frequently freezing comp, and trying to mesh together the parts of those chapters that I saved on disk or wrote longhand, and re-write what was lost. Wish me luck! (mutters darkly) In the meantime, I thought I'd treat you to something unexpected that surprised even me...a new chapter of Appassionata. Guess this one, too, was just hibernating. I can only hope someone somewhere still remembers it.

**Chapter Four: Night Life and Puzzle Pieces**

"Skitts...Skitts? Skitts!"

Her eyes were the first thing he saw when he woke up. For a moment, he struggled to cling to his dream, pretending he was seeing more than a memory. The first thing he saw when he opened his own eyes was Tumbler's face staring down into his.

"Papes," the little boy reminded his friend matter-of-factly, dragging Skittery out of his bunk and off in the direction of the washroom, leaving the older boy at the cracked wall mirror and dashing off to fight Snipeshooter for the tub.

"Mornin', Skittery."

Amid the overwhelming hustle and bustle of twenty boys preparing for a day of work, Skittery picked Racetrack out of the crowd, razor in hand, smirking through a faceful of shaving cream. "You feelin' all right?" he added when Skittery grabbed his own razor without returning the greeting.

"'Course. Why?" Skittery snapped curtly, kidnapping the can of shaving cream.

"You're just awfully quiet this mornin', and you ain't even stolen the towel yet." Race grinned. "Couldn't be thinkin' about _her, _could you?"

Skittery started violently, and cursed as the razor slashed a jagged cut across his chin_. "Who?" _he demanded, seizing a towel from Snitch to dab at the cut.

"She of the brown eyes," Race replied solemnly, and did a fairly accurate imitation of Skittery's tired, dreamy tone two nights before. "'Like a fire, like a candle burnin' in the dark...'"

With a slight involuntary gasp of disbelief, a glaring Skittery promptly turned to smack the smaller boy. Luckily for Race, he happened to forget the towel in his hand, so that Race received no more damage than a faceful of cloth. Tipping his hat impudently, he vanished into the crowd.

Scowling after him, Skittery tensed at the sound of someone chuckling to his left. He spun to see Snoddy busily running a comb through his hair, trying desperately to conceal the amused smile tugging at his lips.

"Did—did I really say—" Skittery sputtered, feeling heat rise to his cheeks. The words Racetrack had teased him with stuck in his mind; he had no memory of their coming out of his own mouth.

Shrugging, Snoddy wet his comb. "Dunno. Maybe Race heard you talk in your sleep." His laughing eyes met Skittery's stormy ones. "So, tell us all about this brown-eyed angel."

"Brown-eyed who?" Pie Eater appeared out of nowhere, still tugging his shirt on. "We talkin' 'bout a girl? Spill, Skittery!"

"Yeah, Skitt, how could you keep this from us? We thought you were our friend!" Blink's smiling face joined the steadily growing audience. Panicking, Skittery tossed aside the towel, rinsed the shaving cream off his face, and fled.

* * *

The distribution center seemed oddly serene without a rabid pack of newsies lined up in front of it. Skittery stood impatiently by the window, waiting for his fifty papers to be counted out so he could get an early start on selling. Of course, how he was going to sell anything with last night playing out before him, over and over again, was a mystery. 

_I'm sorry...God, I'm so sorry._

_It's not a _picture _you need to tell._

She had reacted so strongly to the face in that picture. She knew Charlotta, he was certain of it. And her name hadn't been on any of the crosses. He still had a chance. After all these years...and yet it wasn't only Charlotta's face that haunted him. He couldn't pretend that the little spook's was not alongside it.

_Like a candle... _He didn't remember speaking the phrase, but now that he reflected on it, nothing could be more true. Black-haired, dark-eyed, small and slim and shadowy, she nevertheless had some kind of glow to her...he remembered her face, her voice, and his heart pounded raggedly.

"You gonna stand there all day or get out and sell some papes, kid?" a gruff voice demanded. Rolling his eyes, Skittery grabbed his bundle from the teenager behind the counting window, and turned to find himself face-to-face with the one newsie he could never seem to escape.

"Sell with me?" a slightly bedraggled, wet-haired Tumbler asked hopefully, turning to order seventy papers, which, taking into account his adorable face, enthusiasm, and tumbling skills to boot, the ten-year-old knew he could sell.

Skittery sighed reluctantly. "Aw, Tumble..."

"I got here early just to meet up with you." The boy accepted his papers and grinned expectantly. His heart reduced to a Jello-like consistency on cue, Skittery muttered ungraciously, but nodded, and the two of them started down the street.

"You saw her again, didn't you?"

Jumping, Skittery looked up sharply from the headline he'd been working on, and nearly dropped all his newspapers. "What're you talkin' about?" he demanded breathlessly. It would have been bad enough if Tumbler had started in on the 'brown-eyed angel' taunts like all the others, but he apparently knew more than he should.

"You saw her again. You know...the spook." Tumbler cocked his head to one side, regarded Skittery's stunned face for a moment, nodded slowly, and hollered to the few early-rising pedestrians, "Gov'ner's daughter involved in scandal!"

"How the hell d'you know that?" Skittery's horror caused him to forget about avoiding curses in front of youngsters.

"Well, last night, when Snipes and the others was busy darin' each other to—"

"Yeah, yeah, I heard all about that, go on."

"Well, I woulda joined in, 'cept I was thinkin' you might be bored since I ran off in the middle of our poker game, so I started back to the lodgin' house to look for you. Then I saw her on the roof—"

"Her?"

Tumbler sighed patronizingly. _"You_ know. And she saw me, too. She smiled, and I smiled back. Then I saw you come out the window, and the two of you started talkin', so..."

Skittery held his breath; if Tumbler had heard what he'd yelled at Leah on the roof, he would sink through the sidewalk and die.

"...so I figured you'd keep each other company, and went inside," Tumbler finished diplomatically.

"Oh," Skittery replied faintly. "Uh...Alice Roosevelt breaks her leg!"

"Skitts...that's the real headline."

"Ah...so it is. Uh, Alice Roosevelt...er..."

"She's a nice girl, ain't she?" Tumbler said with a knowing smile.

"Who, Alice Roosevelt?..._what?_...No! She...not you too!" Skittery groaned, giving up on the headlines to glower at his selling partner with all his might. "Listen, kid, you wanna know about that girl? Her name's Leah Bailey, and she was only on our roof last night to look at the stars. She ended up takin' me somewhere and helpin' me figure a few things out, and that's it. She's gone. I ain't never gonna see her again, and neither are you, so just forget about her, got it?"

"Who ya tryin' to convince here?" Tumbler asked shrewdly, this being one of those moments when he discarded all regard to his young age and spoke with infuriating superiority.

Skittery lunged at Tumbler without even realizing what he was doing, but the little newsie merely dodged aside and raised an eyebrow.

"Sorry...just tryin' to help."

Trembling with fury, Skittery crossed his arms over his papers. "And help with _what,_ exactly?"

"Help you realize you wanna see her again."

Skittery opened his mouth at once to protest adamently, but before a word could escape his mouth, he slowly closed it, regarding that concerned, well-meaning face.

"Look, Tumbler. Like I said, forget about Spook..."

"Oh, she's really Spook now? Does she know I came up with it?"

_"Leah. _Forget about her. There is _someone _I wanna see, though. Someone I..._have _to see. I got somethin' to tell this girl, somethin' I shoulda told her a long time ago. Leah's the one made me see that. But now I need to find this girl. And there might be a way you can help."

* * *

"'Tember? Are you mad at me?" 

Perched on the edge of her paint-spattered bunk, Spook winced slightly as September, kneeling on the floor in front of her, harshly dragged a rough little sponge coated in crimson rouge over each of her sallow cheeks.

"No, not mad." The sponge became slightly gentler, but the creases did not leave September's brow. Her makeup was applied unusually thickly tonight, giving her the clownish look of most of the other girls that she tended to avoid. She had also pulled her brown hair back in a painfully tight ponytail bound with a frayed green ribbon. Spook knew that these things meant they were short on money, and would have to work till dawn. But there was more to her roommate's surly mood than that.

"All right, not mad, maybe. But you're...upset with me?"

"I'm worried, Leah...Spook...whatever your name is now." September tossed the sponge aside and attacked her friend's fine black locks with a brush. "You're getting yourself in over your head, _mädchen,_ and you're too damn innocent to see it."

"You know where I was," the soft, sweet voice observed.

September nodded. "And who you were with."

"How?"

"I saw that _painting_ you made." As usual, September spat the word. "Only decent one you ever did, but you picked the worst possible subject."

Fingering the painting beneath her pillow and squirming as the brush yanked at her scalp, Spook hesitated. "I...I know who he is, 'tember. And who you are."

The brush stopped right in the middle of a nasty tangle. September blanched.

"He has a picture of you," Spook explained in a clear but tiny voice. "I took it from him to make him follow me, 'cause I had some things to show him. And he chased me all across Manhattan to get it back."

"A picture?" September's hand dropped limply onto the bed, leaving the brush hanging limply in Spook's hair. Pulling it out and curiously examining the dark hairs caught in its bristles, Spook nodded.

"It had some writin' on the back. In German, I think. Are you..." She looked up solemnly. "Are you Charlotta?"

A muscle jumped in September's face. "I haven't heard that name in years...yeah, I was once Charlotta. And I know which picture you mean. Can't believe he kept it..."

Spook decided not to mention how wrinkled it had been. "You kept one of him, too," she murmured, and September's eyes narrowed. "I never looked through your drawer," Spook added quickly. "I saw it on your dresser the night I first came here, 'member? Just for a moment. Then you flipped it face-down. I saw you put it in your drawer later...it's still there, ain't it?"

September nodded grudgingly. "You saw it for a moment and remembered it for two years?" Suddenly recalling the increasing lateness of the hour, she jumped to her feet and pulled Leah off the bed, dragging her toward the door. "Come on, we'll be late getting started."

"I always wondered who he was," Spook admitted, grabbing a candle and match as she was pulled out into the bar.

"Well, now you know." September paused halfway to the cellar stairs, ignoring, out of habit, the bustling customers of O'Leary's. "He's my brother, and I don't ever want either of us to see him again."

They climbed the stairs in silence, Spook's precious stub of candle lighting the way. When they reached the top and emerged into Madame's smoky lair, packed with the usual ladies of the night, September eyed Spook warily. But the smoke seemed to have no effect on the small girl this time, and the two of them hurried across the room and out into the chilly night.

Gazing down the moonlit street, Spook let out a small, resigned sigh. There was already a customer waiting at her corner. Her questions and plans in regard to September and Skittery would have to wait. With a wave to September, who was already headed for her own corner, Spook went to greet the young man who awaited her.

He was no regular; Spook had never seen him before. He couldn't have been more than twenty, with long, greasy brown hair straggling down his back and growing in fuzzy tufts on his carelessly unshaven face. Dark bags underlined his eyes, and his clothing, though elegant enough, was wrinkled and stained from neglect.

"You?" The man frowned incredulously when Spook stood expectantly before him. "You're, erm...the...this your corner, little girl?" His attempt at delicacy was almost comical under the circumstances, but the humor was lost on Spook.

"Yes, sir," she replied politely. "Are you a customer?"

"That's right," he grunted, and Spook took him by the hand as if he were a child, leading him to a little ramshackle lean-to that stood by the side of the street. She used her heel to push aside the pile of boards used as a crude door, and helped the young man duck in order to enter the structure. The interior was dim and musty, lit only by the candle that Spook placed on an overturned barrel. Besides this barrel, it contained only a few cobwebs and a bare, lumpy cot, on which the man sat while Spook busily shooed a half-starved cat out into the street and shoved the boards back into place.

"You sure you know what you're doin' here, little girl?" he asked as Spook came to sit down beside him.

"My name's Leah Bailey," she informed him, gently dismissing the question. "What's yours?"

A dry, rusty bark of a laugh emerged from the man's throat. "Joe Simmons. Do you usually ask your customers that?"

"Yes. I like talkin' to people. Don't you?"

Joe shifted and cleared his throat, seeming almost embarassed. "I...why don't we just..."

But this most unusual of conversations was interrupted, unexpectedly and harshly, when Spook doubled over without warning.

She coughed, helplessly and repeatedly, shoulders heaving, involuntary tears springing to her eyes. She coughed until it felt like claws were ripping at her lungs, and sandpaper scraping her throat.

"What the—" Mr. Simmons sprang from the bed, stumbling backward several steps. "What's--what are you--stop that. Stop it! _Stop it!"_

But Spook couldn't stop, and as her body continued to shake violently, choking and rattling, Joe drew back his hand and slapped her full across the face, sending her flying back into the wall.

A long moment passed. The man remained standing beside the bed, leaning one hand on the hard mattress, the other still raised, frozen, in midair. He breathed heavily, his eyes glistening. Spook sat up gingerly, absently rubbing her head where it had struck the wall, a dark red bruise forming on her cheek. She let out another few halfhearted coughs to fully clear her throat, then looked up at the man who had struck her.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I guess it was all the dust in here. I didn't mean to remind you of her."

Mr. Simmons' raised hand dropped to his side, his jaw dropping with it. "Her?" he echoed raggedly. "What do you mean?"

"Someone you loved," Spook whispered sadly. "Someone you lost. I heard in your voice, and saw in your face. I'm sorry I coughed, and reminded you."

Slowly, Joe Simmons sank onto the bed beside Spook, his eyes never leaving her face. "Y-you can't...you can't know...how could you..."

"It's true?" Spook prompted gently. He nodded numbly.

"My wife," he admitted, one hand straying unconsciously, regretfully, to Leah's marked cheek, touching the baby-soft skin. "My wife, Emma. I..." He drew in a shaky breath. "I loved her...so much. They said they couldn't save her. The doctor...I didn't believe...but she was all I had. The most beautiful woman in the world. It's so lonely without her. Every day, every night...but I never thought it'd come to this..."

Then his face was in his hands, his muffled and shameful sobs cutting the night, and Spook's arms were around him, her calloused hands stroking his hair, her sincere little voice speaking words of compassion and comfort.

Eventually, the service was rendered for which the man had come, and for which Leah was paid. But as he left the musty lean-to and returned to his empty home, Joe Simmons would ponder that this service was cold comfort compared to the true comfort Spook had given beforehand, her almost magical perception of his grief, the childish concern in her eyes.

Mr. Simmons would also remember how, as he had left Leah back on her corner and slowly walked away, he had seen another man approach her, this one hard-eyed and forbidding, but heard that same warm and cheerful voice make its announcement and inquiry: "My name's Leah Bailey. What's yours?"

* * *

"You should stop this. I should make you stop this. I should've made you stop long ago. _Damn _it, you never should have started in the first place!" 

Spook listened quietly to September's angry rantings as they once again descended the stairs that separated Madame's lair from Mr. O'Leary's bar and their tiny bedroom. "It's just a bruise, 'tember," she said when her companion was silent. "It doesn't even hurt. The man who did it was hurtin', but I think he's a little bit better now. And you know I can't stop workin', I need the money for food and rent, same as you—"

"Rent! As if it costs old O'Leary anything to let us sleep in that little rat hole. Hell, maybe he'll lower it if I finally let Story oblige him—"

She ignored the fact that they were passing the bar counter at that moment, earning them a fierce glare from Mr. O'Leary himself, but stopped in mid-sentence when they reached their bedroom.

"Story," she repeated, latching the door and frowning. "She didn't stop by the bar while we were workin' today."

"She don't drink anymore," Spook explained, taking a couple paint cans and a sheet of paper from the dresser, and curling up in her bunk.

"Oh?" September arched an eyebrow. "That's a first. Why didn't I hear about it?"

"She didn't tell me," Spook explained, mixing blue and grey in one of the can's lids. "I just—"

"You just _knew,_ right? You and your _knowings_, Leah. But it's not just the bar...Story wasn't on her corner tonight."

Spook looked up from her painting to see real fear and worry in her friend's eyes. She bit her lip.

"She's fine, 'tember, I'm sure of it. She just...had someplace else to go."

Untying the ribbon that bound her ponytail and shaking her hair free in relief, September rolled her eyes. "And I suppose you 'just know' that too?"

Distracted by adding just the right amount of yellow, Spook nodded.

"Well, she can take care of herself, I guess. Best come by tomorrow, though, or I'll ask Madame or one of the girls about her." September walked to the dresser, dipped a grubby towel in the wash basin, and began to scrub the heavy, irritating makeup from her face. Spook, eyes still glued to the abstract spirals she was forming on her makeshift canvas, took a deep breath.

"Charlotta?"

The startled glare September aimed over her shoulder threatened to turn Spook to stone. "What's that, revenge for forgetting to call you Spook? My apologies, _leib,_ but most people don't go out one night and come home with a new name."

The sharp-tongued girl looked somewhat chastened, however, at Spook's disapproving glance. "It's not that, 'tember, I don't mind Leah. 'Spook' just seemed to fit, that's all. I'll still call you September if you like. But I wanted to ask you...why have you and Skittery been apart all these years? Why are you so angry with him?"

_"Skittery?" _September dried her face and turned away from Spook to undress. "Is that what he's calling himself now? I won't even ask..."

"He doesn't have an accent like you."

"I suppose that's because he's spent so much time around those New York boys. I never did much socializing with anyone but you and Story. And I knew Story a year longer...miracle I didn't turn Irish." She slipped into her nightgown.

"You didn't answer my question, 'tember," Spook prodded, and September stiffened.

"And I'm not planning on it, _mädchen._ You can fill in the blanks yourself, with that marvelous imagination of yours, to satisfy your curious little mind." Her voice was hard, sharp-edged, and nasty; not the simple, gruff and bitter tones that Spook was accustomed to, but pure acid.

"I know it must hurt, still," she ventured, almost afraid of her dear friend. "But if you can tell me—"

_"He hates me, all right?" _September spun to face Spook head-on, fists clenched at her sides, trembling and white-faced, and looking, somehow, very young, as if she had shed the extra years heaped upon her soul by her profession and quality of life, and regained the fear, the insecurity, the unbridled passion of youth. "He _despises _me, Leah. He _loathes _me. I _disgust _him, I'm _nothing _to him, I'm _dirt. _If you could have heard the things he said to me the day I chose to come here, the day I _had _to come here...if you could have heard me crying my _pathetic _little eyes out, all those first nights, knowing what he thought of me, knowing my brother never wanted to see me again..."

"He's sorry." Even to Spook herself, the timid words came out pitiful and laughable, but they gained strength, and passion, as she continued. "September, he's so sorry. He cried when he looked at your picture, and he said it again and again...'I'm sorry, I'm sorry'...he wants to tell you, 'tember, I know he does. I showed him some things he needed to see, and he understands now, why you had to do this. He wants you to forgive him!"

For a long moment, September's steely eyes gazed contemptuously at the pale, dark-haired cherub gazing plaintively up from a half-finished painting. Then she smirked coldly, extinguished the candle on the dresser, and climbed up to her top bunk.

"Right...when I see him in hell."

* * *

Skittery stumbled wearily up to the door of the lodging house, selling his last paper from the evening edition at the last second, to a man passing by on his way to some late-night social event at a disreputable establishment. Stretching his arms, which ached from the burden of the newspaper bundle, he entered the lobby and signed the registration book, glancing over the other signatures. Not seeing the one he was hoping for, he sank into an uncomfortable chair to wait. 

After about a quarter of an hour, the door opened again, but when Skittery looked up hopefully from the armrest on which he had been nodding off, he was disappointed by the sight of the last two people he wanted to see. Racetrack walked into the lobby with Tanya by his side.

"Heya, Skitts," Race muttered, not looking any more enthusiastic to see Skittery than Skittery felt upon seeing him. He bent to sign Kloppman's book, leaving the little jewel at his side ample opportunity to stare at Skittery as she always did, which she took full advantage of.

"What're you doin' here?" Skittery demanded of the huge green eyes boring into his. He wasn't normally quite so sharp with ladies, but this one had been irritating him ever since he first encountered her.

"My roommate's out for a late date," she explained coolly. She was dressed oddly tonight, Skittery observed, in a dress of grey wool that almost reached her ankles. It resembled a large cocoon, making her look more like a butterfly than ever. The moonlight flowing in the window applied its usual flattering silver-blue sheen to her wavy black waterfall of hair.

"And you just can't bear to stay in an apartment all by yourself, hmm?" Skittery knew he was pushing this a little far, but it really was getting to him, the way the girl practically lived in the lodging house these days, and never seemed to keep her eyes off anyone's faces, or out of their souls.

"Shut up, Skitt," Race advised, tossing down the pen and glaring. Skittery almost laughed, because Race just wasn't the glaring type; he only pulled it off in defense of his precious jewel.

But Tanya put a hand on Race's arm and answered calmly. "I thought I could, actually. I thought I'd be all right tonight, home alone for a few hours."

"But then some scary thug came knockin' at the door, and Race here showed up to fight him off and whisk you away to safety?"

Again, Race started forward, and again, Tanya held him back, her eyes locked to Skittery's, like opposite pairs of magnets. "No. Actually, I...fainted."

This was so unexpected that Skittery dropped his condescending tone and frowned. _"Fainted? _From bein' home alone? Without any thugs knockin' on the door, even?"

But instead of giving the snarky response Skittery had come to expect, Tanya gave a strange little shudder and didn't answer. She grasped Racetrack's hand and allowed him to lead her up the stairs to the bunkroom.

The minutes slid by in eerie silence, and even as he flickered in and out of consciousness on the arm of his chair, Skittery felt his heart clench with worry. What if this was his fault? What if the errand he had sent his little friend on was more dangerous than he had imagined? If anything happened to Tumbler, he would never forgive himself...and he had enough, already, for which he could never forgive himself.

Just as the moon began to show its milky face in the sky outside, the door creaked open once again, and the youngest Duane Street newsboy entered the lobby.

_"There _you are, kid!" Skittery was on his feet in an instant, dashing over to make certain that Tumbler was all in one piece. "You all right?"

Tumbler grinned sheepishly, unused to the attention from his normally grumbling and indifferent idol. "I'm fine. 'S'just that sellin' was so good, I bought the latest edition."

Skittery snorted, realizing he had forgotten to take into account the business success that the smallest newsies tended to enjoy. "So, um...any luck?" he asked casually, leaning against the wall and lighting a cigarette. Tumbler wasn't fooled for a moment; his grin widened.

"Well, I did just what you said. Talked to some people...factory kids, newsies, merchants...anyone that looked like they came from _that _part'a Manhattan...made a few connections...and just like you thought, no one was suspicious of a little kid, no matter what I asked."

"And did you come up with anythin'?" Skittery could no longer disguise the eagerness in his voice. Tumbler's grin disappeared, leaving the supplicant devestated for a moment, but then the small boy nodded solemnly.

"There's a girl, they said, 'bout sixteen...brown hair, blue eyes, German accent...and she goes by somethin' different now, but one person remembered that she was 'Charlotta' a couple years ago."

"So where is she now?" Skittery felt his heart skip a beat. From Tumbler's face, he was ready to assume the worst.

"She...she's where you thought she was," Tumbler admitted. "That...place...they call it Madame's."

Slowly, Skittery nodded, exhaling with deep relief as he absorbed the information. He also couldn't help wondering how much this innocent child knew about what went on in 'that place.' Then he ground out his cigarette, spat in his hand, and extended it to Tumbler with a warm smile.

"Thanks a lot, kid. I definitely owe ya one."

Beaming, Tumbler spat in his own hand and shook firmly, thrilled at this rare display of acceptance and appreciation. "Any time!"

Tanya came down then, Race not far behind, both of them brushing past the two boys and leaving the lodging house without a word. Skittery, watching the door close behind them with raised eyebrows, shrugged at Tumbler, who returned the gesture, and the two of them headed up the stairs to prepare for a hard-earned night's sleep.

As Skittery washed and undressed for bed, his younger sister's face continued to haunt his thoughts. He would go to see her as soon as possible. Maybe in a week or two...perhaps next month...when he worked up the nerve...when he grew desperate enough...when he managed to fully process everything the radiant, luminous "spook" had taught him on that memorable journey the night before.

Little did he know that this very spook had already made her own plans for him, and for his sister as well...and they would begin to go into effect the very next day.


	6. Chapter Five: Remember

**A/N: **Um...it's been _four years. _I _realize _I'm insane. And no, I haven't rewritten any portion of this, although I still think it could really use it. For now, I'm taking the lazier option of just continuing.

Also, this is only part of a chapter—the part that's been gathering dust for the last four years. It will soon be finished, however, and more will follow. Did I mention I'm insane?

**Chapter Five: The Best-Laid Plans**

"Megan? Megan, love?"

            The redhead slept on, oblivious. Michael Brown chuckled affectionately and stroked her bare shoulder. "Story?"

            Her eyes flew open. Seeing whose arms she was curled in, she smiled drowsily and buried her face in his neck. "Y'know yer not s'posta spend the night."

            "Didn't kick me out, though, did ye?"

            "Never have," she agreed, wriggling out of his grasp and untangling herself from the covers. A cloud seemed to have fallen over her, tainting her voice and expression with some troubled rememberance that a sweet night had briefly erased. Mike frowned, swinging one hand down to skitter over the floor in search of his clothes. They were in a one-room apartment, admittedly bare and shabby, but easily superior to the rat hole where Leah brought her customers. _I shouldn't've brought him here, _Story reflected grimly. _Besides bein' against the rules, it's just gonna make this harder._

"Somethin' botherin' ye, lass?"

            He was so damn attuned to her. It was one of the qualities that had kept her off-guard when his visits grew more and more frequent. He not only cared enough to inquire about her moods, fancies, fears, and impulses, about her activities during the sunlit hours when her company was forbidden to him, but he could often sense them without inquiring. He was a bit like Leah in that respect...though that, Story thought with a silent chuckle, looking over the rugged, scarred young Irishman, was where the similarities ended.

            "Not botherin' exactly." She stalled for time, shimmying into her dress. "Button this for me, will ye?"

            He obliged, stroking her hair with his free hand as he did. "But there's _somethin'_ on yer mind. Can't get anything past me, Megan Gallagher."

            "I'll hafta charge ye extra for the fancy accomodations." Story winced at her own coldness; in an attempt at evading a decidedly awkward subject for as long as possible, she'd managed to sound like September.

            "I've got it covered." He paused at the top button, his tone surprised and puzzled. Simultaneous guilt and self-disgust battled in Story's soul. _Damn it, lass, ye know the world's off-kilter when a whore starts worryin' about hurtin' her customer's feelings!_

But it wasn't that simple anymore.

            "Listen, Mike..." She sighed and turned toward him the moment the final button was fastened. "There's somethin' I've gotta tell ye."

            Sighing in return, he sank onto her bed. "Look, Meg, I know it ain't s'posta be like this. But I just can't stay away from—"

            "An' that's where the problem starts." She stood in front of him, arms crossed over the wrinkled brown bosom of her dress, ruddy hair badly disheveled. With one hand, she plucked the rose pendant he had given her from the bedside table, fiddling with it absently. _Get it over with. Hit him in the face with it. That's how it hit you. _"I'm gonna tell ye a story, Mike." _I'm gonna **what,** now? Where the hell did that approach come from?_

Michael raised an eyebrow, half-bemused, half-curious, and scootched over on the bed. "Sure an' that sounds like fun. Does it have a happy ending?"

            "I dunno yet. I'll know once I've told it." Sitting beside him, she drew her knees up to her chest and faced him solemnly. "Once upon a time, there was a beautiful..." A slight smile flitted across her face as her eyes took on their glassy storytelling cast. "...a _resplendent _princess, with hair like a cascade o' shinin' molten copper."

            "Is this a hint?" Mike grinned uncertainly. "Should I be droppin' more flowery compliments?"

            Story shushed him. "The princess lived in the kingdom o' Dublin with the king an' queen an' three little princes. Now, they musta been livin' in exile, 'cause they didn't enjoy the luxury ye might expect for a royal family. Aye, there was hunger in their kingdom, an' there was sickness an' shame, an' they fell victim to it right along with their subjects. The queen drank too much an' sang bawdy ballads in the streets, an' the king drank too much an' told maudlin stories from his youth, an' the princes fought an' stole, an' the princess...had trouble keepin' her mind pure like the priest told her to. They weren't without care, but they got by...each o' them got by."

            She paused for dramatic effect, and Mike rested his head on her shoulder. She swallowed and struggled not to lose the thread.

            "So, uh, by and by, a terrible famine struck the kingdom an' everything changed. The queen ran off with her best friend's husband, an' the king was outta work an' drinkin' all the more. One o' the little princes took sick an' died, and then another. The third won a fine sum in a gamble an' decided to take off to America. It was the popular solution, ye see. His da wouldn't budge from their crumblin' palace in Dublin, 'cause he still thought the queen was comin' back to him, like

Guinevere snubbin' Lancelot an' runnin' back to Arthur's side.

            "But his sister was up for the voyage, so he took her with him, an' after a hard journey, they landed in a harbor in the far-off kingdom o' New York."

            "It's a familiar story," Michael observed gently.

            "Don't get too comfortable," Story warned. "Things went downhill right away, 'cause the prince an' princess wasn't recognized as such in this kingdom so far from their own. They couldn't get work or a decent place to live, an' then one day, as the prince-turned-pauper was walkin' down the street, he was challenged to a duel by a dark knight. He fought valiantly, but the knight prevailed, an' the princess was left alone in the world."

            She hesitated again, pondering her next words.

            "An' then?" Mike prompted, and she smiled a bit. He was hooked.

            "An' then the princess was tempted by a dark spirit. He wanted her to give up the teachin's o' her youth, which no one ever gave a damn about in either kingdom anyway, or so he told the lass. He wanted her to fall from grace an' turn to the dark arts for her own survival. Well, at first the princess wouldn't hear of it. For seven days an' seven nights..." It had been longer, but you never heard about 'months' in fairy tales. "...she resisted temptation, but in the end, she succumbed. An' for another few years, she would never see the sun."

            "Until?"

            "Until another knight came along. At first she s'posed he was just like all the dark knights she'd been with since the spirit whisked her away. But mixed into his darkness, there was a kinda light, somethin' that set him apart. She saw it it in him, an' she figured he saw it in her, an' for a while, he was makin' her feel like the old days, like she was royalty in her own kingdom again. An' then..."

            Mike's head was pillowed against her belly now, and the irony was not lost on her. She cleared her throat and stared at the floor, where a massive cockroach scuttled. "Then she learned that there was to be...an heir to the throne."

            A momentary hush engulfed the room, disturbed only by the faint scratches of mice inside the walls. Story's lover stared blankly at her, as if waiting for the punchline. Then his jaw flapped open, his hand falling from her stomach as if it had suddenly burned him.

            "Story, are ye tellin' me yer—"

            She nodded quickly, looking away. "There's—gonna be a bairn."

            "But is it..." Mike seemed to be choosing his words carefully. He scooted further away from her, finally rising from the bed, reaching for his shoes. His voice was surprisingly, deliberately, calm. "Are ye sure it's—"

            "There were...signs," Story explained dully. "So I saw Dr. Towne." By a long-time arrangement with Madame, the old physician tended to all of her 'girls.' "He said I'm three months along. Since the middle o' June. By then...I mean, all summer, it was only...I was only with..."

            She finally turned to look at him beseechingly. Shoes tied, he met her eyes and sank back onto the bed, draping his hands over her shoulders. "I know."

            "Every night, nearly," she emphasized. _"No one else—"_

            "I _know_."

            She searched his eyes silently for a moment. _"Well?"_

            "Well?" Mike echoed, still unnaturally calm.

            "Ain'cha _feelin' _anything about this!?" Story exploded.

            "What are _you _feelin', lass?" Mike retorted, and with a heavy sigh, Story buried her face in his wrinkled tunic and surrendered herself to his arms.

            "I dunno," she whispered from his embrace. "I mean...there's the way I'm inclined ta think o' things, all fantasy an' sunshine, playin' out just like a fairy tale would. An' then there's the part o' me that's..."

            "Yeah?" Mike prodded gently.

            _The part o' me that's smart. The part o' me that's real. The part I always push away. _Story just shook her head and raised her round hazel eyes, still containing a plea for something impossible.

            "What d'ye want me ta do, Megan?" he asked at last. This time she had a ready answer.

            "Tell me a story."

            "What?"

            "Tell me the happy ending." She spoke firmly now, rapidly, passionately, burying her face in his neck so that her warm breath bathed his ear. "Where you rush me to the altar in a snow-white gown, an' leave the gang an' get a respectable job, an' whisk me outta Madame's into a little apartment, an' save up the money ta take me home ta me old kingdom, an' we have ourselves a little son, or a daughter with a name like...Michaela Rose, an' the famine is gone an' the land's green again an' we raise our bairn so she's never hungry an' never cries an' never wonders what her mam an' da useta be."

            His lips silenced her, and after a kiss that left her as dizzy as a schoolgirl, Mike pulled back and flashed her his usual easy, roguish smile. "I kin see the boat now, sweetheart."

            "Well?" she whispered again.

            "Better find yerself a snow-white gown. I'll come for ye tonight."

            He kissed the top of her head and left without looking back. On the way out, he dropped a small wad of bills on the nightstand. The usual fee—no tip for the fancy accomodations or the well-being of the unborn "Michaela Rose." When he was gone, Story wrapped the gold pendant tightly in her fist, closed her eyes, and curled up in a ball, rocking rhythmically to the tune of a fairy tale.


End file.
